Dialectical Polyptych: an interactive movie installation

Most of the known video games developed by important software companies usually establish an approach to the cinematic language in an attempt to create a perfect combination of narrative, visual technique and interaction. Unlike most video games, interactive film narratives normally involve an interruption in time whenever the spectator has to make choices. “Dialectical Polyptych” is an interactive movie included in a project called “Characters looking for a spectactor”, which aims to give the spectator on-the-fly control over film editing, thus exploiting the role of the spectator as an active subject in the presented narrative. This paper presents an installation based on a mobile device, which allows seamless real-time interactivity with the movie. Different finger touches in the screen allow the spectator to alternate between two parallel narratives, both producing a complementary narrative, and change the angle or shot within each narrative.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Virtual reality learning resources in building pathology

Building surveying students must be capable of analysing the condition of buildings and their components and, where this falls below an agreed standard, make recommendations for their repair. Hence university courses must provide opportunities for students to learn about the main causes of deterioration. Fieldwork exercises are essential but there are often problems locating appropriate buildings, programming visits to satisfy course timetables and complying with health and safety requirements. Whilst virtual surveys of existing buildings are not considered to be a substitute for real-life educational visits, this paper critically examines the development of a novel building pathology educational resource. Alternative technologies for creating digital panoramas are examined, prior to the development of an interactive case study, which enables students to conduct an on-line survey of a Grade 1 listed 16th Century hunting lodge. 360 degree panoramic scenes are linked with hot spots to create an interactive virtual tour of the building. The paper considers how virtual resources can be embedded within the curriculum, gauges tutor reaction to case study materials and identifies opportunities for the development of a suite of building pathology educational media-rich learning materials

The Forking Paths revisited: experimenting on interactive film

Based on the triad film-interactivity-experimentation, the applied research project The Forking Paths, developed at the Centre for Research in Arts and Communication (CIAC), endeavours to find alternative narrative forms in the field of Cinema and, more specifically, in the subfield of Interactive Cinema. The films in the project The Forking Paths invest in the interconnectivity between the film narrative and the viewer, who is given the possibility to be more active and engaged. At same time, the films undertake a research on the development of audio-visual language. The project is available at an online platform, which aims to foster the creation and web hosting of other Interactive Cinema projects in its different variables. This article focusses on the three films completed up to the moment: Haze, The Book of the Dead, and Waltz.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

PickCells: A Physically Reconfigurable Cell-composed Touchscreen

Touchscreens are the predominant medium for interactions with digital services; however, their current fixed form factor narrows the scope for rich physical interactions by limiting interaction possibilities to a single, planar surface. In this paper we introduce the concept of PickCells, a fully reconfigurable device concept composed of cells, that breaks the mould of rigid screens and explores a modular system that affords rich sets of tangible interactions and novel acrossdevice relationships. Through a series of co-design activities – involving HCI experts and potential end-users of such systems – we synthesised a design space aimed at inspiring future research, giving researchers and designers a framework in which to explore modular screen interactions. The design space we propose unifies existing works on modular touch surfaces under a general framework and broadens horizons by opening up unexplored spaces providing new interaction possibilities. In this paper, we present the PickCells concept, a design space of modular touch surfaces, and propose a toolkit for quick scenario prototyping

Using video objects and relevance feedback in video retrieval

Video retrieval is mostly based on using text from dialogue and this remains the most signi¯cant component, despite progress in other aspects. One problem with this is when a searcher wants to locate video based on what is appearing in the video rather than what is being spoken about. Alternatives such as automatically-detected features and image-based keyframe matching can be used, though these still need further improvement in quality. One other modality for video retrieval is based on segmenting objects from video and allowing end users to use these as part of querying. This uses similarity between query objects and objects from video, and in theory allows retrieval based on what is actually appearing on-screen. The main hurdles to greater use of this are the overhead of object segmentation on large amounts of video and the issue of whether we can actually achieve effective object-based retrieval. We describe a system to support object-based video retrieval where a user selects example video objects as part of the query. During a search a user builds up a set of these which are matched against objects previously segmented from a video library. This match is based on MPEG-7 Dominant Colour, Shape Compaction and Texture Browsing descriptors. We use a user-driven semi-automated segmentation process to segment the video archive which is very accurate and is faster than conventional video annotation

The lives of others: an interactive installation

“The lives of others” is an interactive audiovisual installation that is based on a voyeuristic approach of the binomial inside / outside and private / public, between the finished product presentable to the public and the mechanism that generates it. This mechanism consisting of physical devices and logical-mathematical instructions usually remains in the private sphere, is the interior of the work that is not seen, which belongs only to the creator / author. “the lives of others” quest for demystify the separation of the visual apparatus and the mechanism that generates this external system, making both visible and bringing to the public sphere the elements usually hidden.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio