Visualisation techniques, human perception and the built environment

Historically, architecture has a wealth of visualisation techniques that have evolved throughout the period of structural design, with Virtual Reality (VR) being a relatively recent addition to the toolbox. To date the effectiveness of VR has been demonstrated from conceptualisation through to final stages and maintenance, however, its full potential has yet to be realised (Bouchlaghem et al, 2005). According to Dewey (1934), perceptual integration was predicted to be transformational; as the observer would be able to ‘engage’ with the virtual environment. However, environmental representations are predominately focused on the area of vision, regardless of evidence stating that the experience is multi sensory. In addition, there is a marked lack of research exploring the complex interaction of environmental design and the user, such as the role of attention or conceptual interpretation. This paper identifies the potential of VR models to aid communication for the Built Environment with specific reference to human perception issues

Interactions with Projected Augmented Relief Models (PARM)

Techniques for enhancing physical landscape models with dynamic maps and imagery, termed Projected Augmented Relief Models (PARM), are part of a revival of interest in the power of relief models as tools for geographic visualization. This method enables the creation of dynamic and engaging public displays, which appear attractive but also promote discussion and interaction as revealed through direct observation and video. This paper explores the capabilities of physical relief models as tangible displays for geographic information, and considers the role of interaction using the Kinect sensor for finger detection. The focus of interaction is on making solid landscape models of real geographic areas reactive to touch

Designing Disambiguation Techniques for Pointing in the Physical World

International audienceSeveral ways for selecting physical objects exist, including touching and pointing at them. Allowing the user to interact at a distance by pointing at physical objects can be challenging when the environment contains a large number of interactive physical objects, possibly occluded by other everyday items. Previous pointing techniques highlighted the need for disambiguation techniques. Addressing this challenge, this paper contributes a design space that organizes along groups and axes a set of options for designers to relevantly (1) describe, (2) classify, and (3) design disambiguation techniques. First, we have not found techniques in the literature yet that our design space could not describe. Second, all the techniques show a different path along the axes of our design space. Third, it allows defining of several new paths/solutions that have not yet been explored. We illustrate this generative power with the example of such a designed technique, Physical Pointing Roll (P2Roll)

A cognitive model of user interaction as a guideline for designing novel interfaces

Adaptive systems behavior based on user models appear promising, mostly for complex environments such as mixed reality environments (MRE). An MRE comprises a virtual representation of the reality as well as physical objects augmented with virtual features. These objects are coupled with the virtual representation so that they can reflect its changes in real time. The proper design of an MRE and the user models that it implies are crucial for its success, but unfortunately, there are no guidelines for the design of these environments. In this paper we present a methodology for designing user models for MRE as well as for the augmentation of physical everyday objects. The user model describes users’ knowledge in two levels of abstraction: objects manipulation (syntax) and its meaning assigned by a community of practice (semantics).1st International Workshop on Advanced Software Engineering: Expanding the Frontiers of Software Technology - Session 2: Software ModelingRed de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

CHARACTERISATION OF A CO-CREATIVE DESIGN SESSION THROUGH THE ANALYSIS OF MULTI-MODAL INTERACTIONS

The paper presents an investigation that aims at describing the behaviour of designers, designers' client and products' end user in collaborative design sessions, which are characterized by language barriers and significant differences in the background and competencies of the involved stakeholders. The study has been developed within a European project aimed at developing a Spatial Augmented Reality based platform that enriches and facilitates the communication in co-design. Through the analysis of a real case study in the field of packaging design involving a team of ten design actors, the paper analyses with an original joint approach both the gestures and the verbal interactions of the co-design session. After describing the two tailored coding schemes that capture different facets of, respectively, the gestures and the content of the communication occurring between the participants, the paper describes the partial results and the outcomes of the joint analysis, revealing the importance of combining the two forms of study to suitably characterize the behaviour of the design actors

From Industry to Practice: Can Users Tackle Domain Tasks with Augmented Reality?

Augmented Reality (AR) is a cutting-edge interactive technology. While Virtual Reality (VR) is based on completely virtual and immersive environments, AR superimposes virtual objects onto the real world. The value of AR has been demonstrated and applied within numerous industrial application areas due to its capability of providing interactive interfaces of visualized digital content. AR can provide functional tools that support users in undertaking domain-related tasks, especially facilitating them in data visualization and interaction by jointly augmenting physical space and user perception. Making effective use of the advantages of AR, especially the ability which augment human vision to help users perform different domain-related tasks is the central part of my PhD research.Industrial process tomography (IPT), as a non-intrusive and commonly-used imaging technique, has been effectively harnessed in many manufacturing components for inspections, monitoring, product quality control, and safety issues. IPT underpins and facilitates the extraction of qualitative and quantitative data regarding the related industrial processes, which is usually visualized in various ways for users to understand its nature, measure the critical process characteristics, and implement process control in a complete feedback network. The adoption of AR in benefiting IPT and its related fields is currently still scarce, resulting in a gap between AR technique and industrial applications. This thesis establishes a bridge between AR practitioners and IPT users by accomplishing four stages. First of these is a need-finding study of how IPT users can harness AR technique was developed. Second, a conceptualized AR framework, together with the implemented mobile AR application developed in an optical see-through (OST) head-mounted display (HMD) was proposed. Third, the complete approach for IPT users interacting with tomographic visualizations as well as the user study was investigated.Based on the shared technologies from industry, we propose and examine an AR approach for visual search tasks providing visual hints, audio hints, and gaze-assisted instant post-task feedback as the fourth stage. The target case was a book-searching task, in which we aimed to explore the effect of the hints and the feedback with two hypotheses: that both visual and audio hints can positively affect AR search tasks whilst the combination outperforms the individuals; that instant post-task feedback can positively affect AR search tasks. The proof-of-concept was demonstrated by an AR app in an HMD with a two-stage user evaluation. The first one was a pilot study (n=8) where the impact of the visual hint in benefiting search task performance was identified. The second was a comprehensive user study (n=96) consisting of two sub-studies, Study I (n=48) and Study II (n=48). Following quantitative and qualitative analysis, our results partially verified the first hypothesis and completely verified the second, enabling us to conclude that the synthesis of visual and audio hints conditionally improves AR search task efficiency when coupled with task feedback

An aesthetics of touch: investigating the language of design relating to form

How well can designers communicate qualities of touch? This paper presents evidence that they have some capability to do so, much of which appears to have been learned, but at present make limited use of such language. Interviews with graduate designer-makers suggest that they are aware of and value the importance of touch and materiality in their work, but lack a vocabulary to fully relate to their detailed explanations of other aspects such as their intent or selection of materials. We believe that more attention should be paid to the verbal dialogue that happens in the design process, particularly as other researchers show that even making-based learning also has a strong verbal element to it. However, verbal language alone does not appear to be adequate for a comprehensive language of touch. Graduate designers-makers’ descriptive practices combined non-verbal manipulation within verbal accounts. We thus argue that haptic vocabularies do not simply describe material qualities, but rather are situated competences that physically demonstrate the presence of haptic qualities. Such competencies are more important than groups of verbal vocabularies in isolation. Design support for developing and extending haptic competences must take this wide range of considerations into account to comprehensively improve designers’ capabilities

Virtual transcendence experiences: Exploring technical and design challenges in multi-sensory environments

In this paper 1, we introduce the concept of Virtual Transcendence Experience (VTE) as a response to the interactions of several users sharing several immersive experiences through different media channels. For that, we review the current body of knowledge that has led to the development of a VTE system. This is followed by a discussion of current technical and design challenges that could support the implementation of this concept. This discussion has informed the VTE framework (VTEf), which integrates different layers of experiences, including the role of each user and the technical challenges involved. We conclude this paper with suggestions for two scenarios and recommendations for the implementation of a system that could support VTEs