Dynamic urban projection mapping

“Dynamic projection mapping” is a variation of the best-known “projection mapping”. It considers the perceptual analysis of the urban landscape in which the video projection and the observer’s displacement speed are hypothesized. This latter, in particular, is variable and may depend on factors not directly controllable by the driver (slowdowns due to accidents, rallies, etc.). This speed can be supported and controlled by a number of traffic flow measurement systems. These data are available on the internet, like Google Maps APIs and/or speed sensors located close to the point of interest. The content of projection becomes dynamic and varies according to how the observer perceives the vehicle: slow, medium, fast

Four dimensional presentations as a new representation method: a proposal for the use of interactive multimedia presentation in landscape architecture

Few studies on presentation methods in the profession of landscape architecture have been done in the past, because evaluating presentations raises primarily subjective issues. Today, interactive multimedia presentations offer an excellent opportunity to investigate the presentation methods employed by landscape architects, gCan new communication technologies help to enhance the communication between the presenter and his audience?h This is the fundamental question addressed in this thesis. It explores interactive multimedia presentations to see their potentials, and considers ways to integrate various multimedia as presentation methods for future landscape architectural presentations. The main terms, interactivity and multimedia, are explained to understand the features of interactive multimedia presentations. Conventions of traditional presentations and historical aspects are overviewed to deepen the meanings of presentation methods. An interactive multimedia presentation is actually produced to explore how multimedia can be effective tools and to document how the interactive multimedia presentations are produced. It used to be very difficult to represent the transitions between spaces in traditional paper board presentations; however, interactive multimedia presentations make it possible to visualize the transitions and relationship between the designed spaces three-dimensionally. Landscape architects today should make the most use of various media and utilize the new computer communication technologies to enhance their presentations. 3D modeling process greatly helps designers check and reevaluate their proposed designs as well. In fact, interactive multimedia presentations are useful not only for the presentations but also for total professional communication and educational purposes

From Social Simulation to Integrative System Design

As the recent financial crisis showed, today there is a strong need to gain "ecological perspective" of all relevant interactions in socio-economic-techno-environmental systems. For this, we suggested to set-up a network of Centers for integrative systems design, which shall be able to run all potentially relevant scenarios, identify causality chains, explore feedback and cascading effects for a number of model variants, and determine the reliability of their implications (given the validity of the underlying models). They will be able to detect possible negative side effect of policy decisions, before they occur. The Centers belonging to this network of Integrative Systems Design Centers would be focused on a particular field, but they would be part of an attempt to eventually cover all relevant areas of society and economy and integrate them within a "Living Earth Simulator". The results of all research activities of such Centers would be turned into informative input for political Decision Arenas. For example, Crisis Observatories (for financial instabilities, shortages of resources, environmental change, conflict, spreading of diseases, etc.) would be connected with such Decision Arenas for the purpose of visualization, in order to make complex interdependencies understandable to scientists, decision-makers, and the general public.Comment: 34 pages, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

Authoring Multi-Actor Behaviors in Crowds With Diverse Personalities

Multi-actor simulation is critical to cinematic content creation, disaster and security simulation, and interactive entertainment. A key challenge is providing an appropriate interface for authoring high-fidelity virtual actors with featurerich control mechanisms capable of complex interactions with the environment and other actors. In this chapter, we present work that addresses the problem of behavior authoring at three levels: Individual and group interactions are conducted in an event-centric manner using parameterized behavior trees, social crowd dynamics are captured using the OCEAN personality model, and a centralized automated planner is used to enforce global narrative constraints on the scale of the entire simulation. We demonstrate the benefits and limitations of each of these approaches and propose the need for a single unifying construct capable of authoring functional, purposeful, autonomous actors which conform to a global narrative in an interactive simulation