Using AR and VR characters for enhancing user experience in a museum

Museums and cultural heritage institutions have used technology to create interactive exhibits and pedagogical tools that help spark visitors’ interests. The rise of Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality Systems has further enabled the creation of a new generation of immersive experiences that can engage and educate visitors. These technologies can be used to develop digital characters that can serve as virtual tour guides and improve user engagement by answering questions and forming social bonds with the users. While such tour guides have been deployed as exhibits at many museums, the implementation is usually limited to a single exhibit or a section of the museum space. We believe that visitors will be better served if the virtual guide not only enriches the onsite experience but also provides a take-home experience for users to encourage future visits. This thesis explores the enhancement in user experience that such a system can bring by offering onsite and offsite AR and WebVR technologies to create a virtual tour guide that assists visitors at the Genesee Country Village & Museum through interactive dialog as they explore the historic village on the museum campus

COUNTING ON: Humanizing self-tracked data in a connected world

This thesis explores the evolving role of the Quantified Self and self-tracking culture within personalized healthcare. Health and fitness wearables are proliferating globally. However, wearable device abandonment rates are also surging. Wearables can sometimes be authoritative or punitive when presenting wearers with their biological data. In the past, some devices have even triggered adverse health-related conditions. This thesis proposes an approach to visualizing biological data from wearables, in ways that are coherent, contextual, and humane. It critiques normative data visualizations in commercial wearables and speculates alternate futures for self-tracking to empower individuals to manage their health and well-being autonomously. Through an iterative development process to prototype creation, the author gathers biological data using a consumer wearable device and uses it to propose an information architecture that categorizes the data coherently. The architecture is applied in hand-drawn, domestic, embedded visualization prototypes that present the author’s biological data. Lastly, user interviews are conducted to acquire responses to the prototypes and plan possibilities for future iterations. The purpose of this research is to advocate empathy and compassion in the emerging culture of living with data while considering the intricacies of everyday life, the imperfections of being human, and the need for autonomy in personal data management

Framework for locative audio composition

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, School of Architecture and Planning, Program in Media Arts and Sciences, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references.The way we perceive everyday space-a room, a building, a city-is informed not just by our immediate sensory input: culture, history, and other contextual cues complete our experience. With the advent of sensor-rich, highly-connected objects, our ability to interpret and refine these contextual elements, and therefore our experience of space, grows ever sharper. Location-aware sound art has the potential to apply this new technology in groundbreaking ways, but at present such work is hampered by the lack of a widely-accessible composition platform. In this work, I survey prominent works in the locative-sound art field and propose a scale-independent software framework for composing sound in space. As a proof-of-concept and to encourage further dialogue, I use this framework to create a large-scale participatory project that will allow anyone to sound-design his or her neighborhood space.by Noah Feehan.S.M

From Data to Decision Support in Manufacturing

Digitalization is changing society, industry, and how business is done. For new companies that are more or less born digital, there is the opportunity to use and benefit from the capabilities offered by the new digital technologies, of which data-driven decision-making forms a crucial part. The manufacturing industry is facing the Fourth Industrial Revolution, but most manufacturing organizations are lagging behind in their digital transformation. This is due to the technical and organizational challenges they are experiencing. Based on this current state description and existing gap, the vision, aim, and research questions of this thesis are: Vision - future manufacturing organization to be driven by fact-based decision support based on data rather than of relying mainly on intuition and experience.Aim - to show manufacturing organizations the applicability of digital technologies in digitalizing manufacturing system data to support decision-making and how data sharing may be achieved.Research Question 1. How do manufacturing system lifecycle decisions influence the requirements of data collection towards interoperability? Research Question 2. What makes interoperability standardization applicable to sharing data in a manufacturing system’s lifecycle?This research is applied, addressing real-world problems in manufacturing. For this reason, the main objective is to solve the problem at hand, and data collection methods will be selected that can help address it. This can best be explained by taking a pragmatic worldview and using mixed methods approach that combines quantitative and qualitative methods. The research upon which this thesis is based draws on the results of three research projects involving the active participation of manufacturing companies. The data collection methods included experiments, interviews (focus group and semi-structured), technical development, literature review, and so on. The results are divided into three areas: 1) connected factory, 2) standard representation of machine model data, and 3) the digital twin in smart manufacturing. Connected factory addresses the question of how a mobile connectivity solution, 5G, may be used in a factory setting and demonstrates how the connectivity solution should be planned and how new data from a connected machine may support an operator in decision-making. The standard representation of machine model data demonstrates how an international standard may be used more widely to support the sharing and reuse of information. The digital twin in smart manufacturing investigates the reasons why there are so few real-world examples of this. The findings reveal that a manufacturing system’s lifecycle impacts data requirements, including a need for data accuracy in design, speed of data in operation (to allow operators to act upon events), and availability of historical data in maintenance (for finding root causes and planning). The volume of data was identified as important to all lifecycles. The applicability of standards was found to depend on: 1) the technology providers’ willingness to adapt standards, 2) enforcement by OEMs and larger actors further down a supply chain, 3) the development of standards that consider the user, and 4) when standards are required for infrastructure reasons. Based on the results and findings obtained, it may be stated that it is important to determine what actual manufacturing problem should be addressed by digital technology. There is a tendency to view this change from the perspective of what the digital technology might solve (a technology push), rather than setting aside the solution and focusing on what problem should be solved (a technology pull). This work also reveals the importance of the collaboration between industry and academia making progress in the digital transformation of manufacturing. Proofs-of-concept and demonstrators of how digital technologies might be used are also important tools in helping industry in how they can address a digital transformation

Open design : práticas atuais e implicações para a arquitetura e desenho urbano

Orientador: Evandro Ziggiatti MonteiroTese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e UrbanismoResumo: O conceito de Design Aberto (OD) tem atraído cada vez mais atenção de pesquisadores, comunidades e empresas. Os seus benefícios são frequentemente associados à democratização do design, melhoria mais rápida de projetos, customização em massa e aos processos de inovação alternativos. No campo da construção, diferentes exemplos que levam em consideração o conceito do OD, podem ser encontrados. As possibilidades vão desde o compartilhamento de componentes de rápida fabricação e de baixo custo para a construção de casas (Wikihouse), passando pela fabricação de móveis (Opendesk) até as ferramentas de jardinagem (AKER). No contexto de comunidades mais pobres, a abordagem OD desperta interesse. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar o conceito de DO como fenômeno emergente e suas implicações no campo da Arquitetura e do Design Urbano. Atualmente, existem poucas pesquisas sobre OD, principalmente se o limitarmos à prática da arquitetura. Proponho uma análise de pesquisa multi-método, utilizando estratégias qualitativas e quantitativas no estudo do mesmo fenômeno. A estrutura da pesquisa aborda quatro questões principais: (1) Como os diferentes aspectos de abertura afetam a fabricação de artefatos? (2) Como o OD se relaciona com o desenvolvimento sustentável? Quais são as limitações atuais e os caminhos possíveis para superá-las? (3) Quais são os desafios atuais para replicabilidade no OD e como superá-los? (4) Qual é a estrutura de uma comunidade colaborativa de OD? Com base nos resultados, é possível argumentar que que o OD possa alterar a maneira como os arquitetos e os urbanistas trabalham. Os obstáculos atuais, no entanto, precisam ser enfrentados antes que o conceito possa ser adotado por um público maior, especialmente nas comunidades mais pobres. Dos resultados transversais de quatro questões propostas, quatro sugestões foram feitas: (1) a adoção de uma abordagem de metadesign, (2) a adoção de projetos modulares, (3) a educação para a abertura e (4) o uso de microfábricas móveis como infraestrutura urbana. Por fim, a pesquisa contribui para as discussões sobre OD e visa construir uma estrutura conceitual para a prática profissional da arquitetura com uma abordagem voltada ao ODAbstract: The concept of Open Design (OD) has increasingly gathered attention amongst scholars, grassroots communities and companies during the last ten years. OD benefits are often associated to the design democratization, faster improvement of design artifacts, mass customization and alternative innovation processes. In the construction field, a number of examples that take knowledge and digital commons into account already exists. The possibilities go from sharing low-cost and rapid-assembly components for building houses (Wikihouse), furniture fabrication (Opendesk) and gardening tools (AKER)). In the context of a developing country, the OD approach arouses interest. This research aims to investigate the concept of OD as an emergent phenomenon and its implications to the field of Architecture and Urban Design. Despite the emergence, little research on OD currently exists, especially if we limit it to the scope of the architecture practice. I propose a multi-method research analysis, using qualitative and quantitative strategies in the study of the same phenoma. The research structure addresses four main questions: (1) How do the different aspects of openness affect artefact manufacturing? (2) How does Open Design relate to sustainable development? What are the current limitations and possible pathways to overcome such limitations? (3) What are the current challenges for replicability in OD and how to overcome them? (4) What is the structure of an OD collaborative community? How and Why users collaborate? Based on the findings, it is possible to argue for the viability of OD to change the way architects and urban designers work. Current hurdles however need to be tackled before it can be adopted by a larger audience, especially in poorer communities. From cross-cutting results of four RQs, four suggestions were made: (1) the adoption of a metadesign approach, (2) the adoption of modular designs, (3) the education for openness and (4) mobile microfactories as urban infrastructure. The research contributes to discussions on Open Design and aims to build a conceptual framework for the professional practice within the emergence of ODDoutoradoArquitetura, Tecnologia e CidadeDoutor em Arquitetura, Tecnologia e Cidade01-P-04375-2015CAPE

Equality in the City

This collection critiques the rhetoric of ‘smart cities’. It seeks to engender a timely debate about what future cities might look like and what their concerns should be. Using a multi-disciplinary perspective, it features acclaimed scholars whose work investigates the proposed networked digital technologies that ostensibly affect planning policies, control infrastructures and deliver and manage city services and systems. The contributors offer insights into how future cities might be envisaged, planned and executed in order to be more ‘equal’.   

Equality in the City

This collection critiques the rhetoric of ‘smart cities’. It seeks to engender a timely debate about what future cities might look like and what their concerns should be. Using a multi-disciplinary perspective, it features acclaimed scholars whose work investigates the proposed networked digital technologies that ostensibly affect planning policies, control infrastructures and deliver and manage city services and systems. The contributors offer insights into how future cities might be envisaged, planned and executed in order to be more ‘equal’