ISAR: Ein Autorensystem für Interaktive Tische

Developing augmented reality systems involves several challenges, that prevent end users and experts from non-technical domains, such as education, to experiment with this technology. In this research we introduce ISAR, an authoring system for augmented reality tabletops targeting users from non-technical domains. ISAR allows non-technical users to create their own interactive tabletop applications and experiment with the use of this technology in domains such as educations, industrial training, and medical rehabilitation.Die Entwicklung von Augmented-Reality-Systemen ist mit mehreren Herausforderungen verbunden, die Endbenutzer und Experten aus nicht-technischen Bereichen, wie z.B. dem Bildungswesen, daran hindern, mit dieser Technologie zu experimentieren. In dieser Forschung stellen wir ISAR vor, ein Autorensystem für Augmented-Reality-Tabletops, das sich an Benutzer aus nicht-technischen Bereichen richtet. ISAR ermöglicht es nicht-technischen Anwendern, ihre eigenen interaktiven Tabletop-Anwendungen zu erstellen und mit dem Einsatz dieser Technologie in Bereichen wie Bildung, industrieller Ausbildung und medizinischer Rehabilitation zu experimentieren

Mixed reality participants in smart meeting rooms and smart home enviroments

Human–computer interaction requires modeling of the user. A user profile typically contains preferences, interests, characteristics, and interaction behavior. However, in its multimodal interaction with a smart environment the user displays characteristics that show how the user, not necessarily consciously, verbally and nonverbally provides the smart environment with useful input and feedback. Especially in ambient intelligence environments we encounter situations where the environment supports interaction between the environment, smart objects (e.g., mobile robots, smart furniture) and human participants in the environment. Therefore it is useful for the profile to contain a physical representation of the user obtained by multi-modal capturing techniques. We discuss the modeling and simulation of interacting participants in a virtual meeting room, we discuss how remote meeting participants can take part in meeting activities and they have some observations on translating research results to smart home environments

Developing serious games for cultural heritage: a state-of-the-art review

Although the widespread use of gaming for leisure purposes has been well documented, the use of games to support cultural heritage purposes, such as historical teaching and learning, or for enhancing museum visits, has been less well considered. The state-of-the-art in serious game technology is identical to that of the state-of-the-art in entertainment games technology. As a result, the field of serious heritage games concerns itself with recent advances in computer games, real-time computer graphics, virtual and augmented reality and artificial intelligence. On the other hand, the main strengths of serious gaming applications may be generalised as being in the areas of communication, visual expression of information, collaboration mechanisms, interactivity and entertainment. In this report, we will focus on the state-of-the-art with respect to the theories, methods and technologies used in serious heritage games. We provide an overview of existing literature of relevance to the domain, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the described methods and point out unsolved problems and challenges. In addition, several case studies illustrating the application of methods and technologies used in cultural heritage are presented

IMPROVE: collaborative design review in mobile mixed reality

In this paper we introduce an innovative application designed to make collaborative design review in the architectural and automotive domain more effective. For this purpose we present a system architecture which combines variety of visualization displays such as high resolution multi-tile displays, TabletPCs and head-mounted displays with innovative 2D and 3D Interaction Paradigms to better support collaborative mobile mixed reality design reviews. Our research and development is motivated by two use scenarios: automotive and architectural design review involving real users from Page\Park architects and FIAT Elasis. Our activities are supported by the EU IST project IMPROVE aimed at developing advanced display techniques, fostering activities in the areas of: optical see-through HMD development using unique OLED technology, marker-less optical tracking, mixed reality rendering, image calibration for large tiled displays, collaborative tablet-based and projection wall oriented interaction and stereoscopic video streaming for mobile users. The paper gives an overview of the hardware and software developments within IMPROVE and concludes with results from first user tests

Conceitos e métodos para apoio ao desenvolvimento e avaliação de colaboração remota utilizando realidade aumentada

Remote Collaboration using Augmented Reality (AR) shows great potential to establish a common ground in physically distributed scenarios where team-members need to achieve a shared goal. However, most research efforts in this field have been devoted to experiment with the enabling technology and propose methods to support its development. As the field evolves, evaluation and characterization of the collaborative process become an essential, but difficult endeavor, to better understand the contributions of AR. In this thesis, we conducted a critical analysis to identify the main limitations and opportunities of the field, while situating its maturity and proposing a roadmap of important research actions. Next, a human-centered design methodology was adopted, involving industrial partners to probe how AR could support their needs during remote maintenance. These outcomes were combined with literature methods into an AR-prototype and its evaluation was performed through a user study. From this, it became clear the necessity to perform a deep reflection in order to better understand the dimensions that influence and must/should be considered in Collaborative AR. Hence, a conceptual model and a humancentered taxonomy were proposed to foster systematization of perspectives. Based on the model proposed, an evaluation framework for contextualized data gathering and analysis was developed, allowing support the design and performance of distributed evaluations in a more informed and complete manner. To instantiate this vision, the CAPTURE toolkit was created, providing an additional perspective based on selected dimensions of collaboration and pre-defined measurements to obtain “in situ” data about them, which can be analyzed using an integrated visualization dashboard. The toolkit successfully supported evaluations of several team-members during tasks of remote maintenance mediated by AR. Thus, showing its versatility and potential in eliciting a comprehensive characterization of the added value of AR in real-life situations, establishing itself as a generalpurpose solution, potentially applicable to a wider range of collaborative scenarios.Colaboração Remota utilizando Realidade Aumentada (RA) apresenta um enorme potencial para estabelecer um entendimento comum em cenários onde membros de uma equipa fisicamente distribuídos precisam de atingir um objetivo comum. No entanto, a maioria dos esforços de investigação tem-se focado nos aspetos tecnológicos, em fazer experiências e propor métodos para apoiar seu desenvolvimento. À medida que a área evolui, a avaliação e caracterização do processo colaborativo tornam-se um esforço essencial, mas difícil, para compreender as contribuições da RA. Nesta dissertação, realizámos uma análise crítica para identificar as principais limitações e oportunidades da área, ao mesmo tempo em que situámos a sua maturidade e propomos um mapa com direções de investigação importantes. De seguida, foi adotada uma metodologia de Design Centrado no Humano, envolvendo parceiros industriais de forma a compreender como a RA poderia responder às suas necessidades em manutenção remota. Estes resultados foram combinados com métodos da literatura num protótipo de RA e a sua avaliação foi realizada com um caso de estudo. Ficou então clara a necessidade de realizar uma reflexão profunda para melhor compreender as dimensões que influenciam e devem ser consideradas na RA Colaborativa. Foram então propostos um modelo conceptual e uma taxonomia centrada no ser humano para promover a sistematização de perspetivas. Com base no modelo proposto, foi desenvolvido um framework de avaliação para recolha e análise de dados contextualizados, permitindo apoiar o desenho e a realização de avaliações distribuídas de forma mais informada e completa. Para instanciar esta visão, o CAPTURE toolkit foi criado, fornecendo uma perspetiva adicional com base em dimensões de colaboração e medidas predefinidas para obter dados in situ, que podem ser analisados utilizando o painel de visualização integrado. O toolkit permitiu avaliar com sucesso vários colaboradores durante a realização de tarefas de manutenção remota apoiada por RA, permitindo mostrar a sua versatilidade e potencial em obter uma caracterização abrangente do valor acrescentado da RA em situações da vida real. Sendo assim, estabelece-se como uma solução genérica, potencialmente aplicável a uma gama diversificada de cenários colaborativos.Programa Doutoral em Engenharia Informátic

Spatial Interaction for Immersive Mixed-Reality Visualizations

Growing amounts of data, both in personal and professional settings, have caused an increased interest in data visualization and visual analytics. Especially for inherently three-dimensional data, immersive technologies such as virtual and augmented reality and advanced, natural interaction techniques have been shown to facilitate data analysis. Furthermore, in such use cases, the physical environment often plays an important role, both by directly influencing the data and by serving as context for the analysis. Therefore, there has been a trend to bring data visualization into new, immersive environments and to make use of the physical surroundings, leading to a surge in mixed-reality visualization research. One of the resulting challenges, however, is the design of user interaction for these often complex systems. In my thesis, I address this challenge by investigating interaction for immersive mixed-reality visualizations regarding three core research questions: 1) What are promising types of immersive mixed-reality visualizations, and how can advanced interaction concepts be applied to them? 2) How does spatial interaction benefit these visualizations and how should such interactions be designed? 3) How can spatial interaction in these immersive environments be analyzed and evaluated? To address the first question, I examine how various visualizations such as 3D node-link diagrams and volume visualizations can be adapted for immersive mixed-reality settings and how they stand to benefit from advanced interaction concepts. For the second question, I study how spatial interaction in particular can help to explore data in mixed reality. There, I look into spatial device interaction in comparison to touch input, the use of additional mobile devices as input controllers, and the potential of transparent interaction panels. Finally, to address the third question, I present my research on how user interaction in immersive mixed-reality environments can be analyzed directly in the original, real-world locations, and how this can provide new insights. Overall, with my research, I contribute interaction and visualization concepts, software prototypes, and findings from several user studies on how spatial interaction techniques can support the exploration of immersive mixed-reality visualizations.Zunehmende Datenmengen, sowohl im privaten als auch im beruflichen Umfeld, führen zu einem zunehmenden Interesse an Datenvisualisierung und visueller Analyse. Insbesondere bei inhärent dreidimensionalen Daten haben sich immersive Technologien wie Virtual und Augmented Reality sowie moderne, natürliche Interaktionstechniken als hilfreich für die Datenanalyse erwiesen. Darüber hinaus spielt in solchen Anwendungsfällen die physische Umgebung oft eine wichtige Rolle, da sie sowohl die Daten direkt beeinflusst als auch als Kontext für die Analyse dient. Daher gibt es einen Trend, die Datenvisualisierung in neue, immersive Umgebungen zu bringen und die physische Umgebung zu nutzen, was zu einem Anstieg der Forschung im Bereich Mixed-Reality-Visualisierung geführt hat. Eine der daraus resultierenden Herausforderungen ist jedoch die Gestaltung der Benutzerinteraktion für diese oft komplexen Systeme. In meiner Dissertation beschäftige ich mich mit dieser Herausforderung, indem ich die Interaktion für immersive Mixed-Reality-Visualisierungen im Hinblick auf drei zentrale Forschungsfragen untersuche: 1) Was sind vielversprechende Arten von immersiven Mixed-Reality-Visualisierungen, und wie können fortschrittliche Interaktionskonzepte auf sie angewendet werden? 2) Wie profitieren diese Visualisierungen von räumlicher Interaktion und wie sollten solche Interaktionen gestaltet werden? 3) Wie kann räumliche Interaktion in diesen immersiven Umgebungen analysiert und ausgewertet werden? Um die erste Frage zu beantworten, untersuche ich, wie verschiedene Visualisierungen wie 3D-Node-Link-Diagramme oder Volumenvisualisierungen für immersive Mixed-Reality-Umgebungen angepasst werden können und wie sie von fortgeschrittenen Interaktionskonzepten profitieren. Für die zweite Frage untersuche ich, wie insbesondere die räumliche Interaktion bei der Exploration von Daten in Mixed Reality helfen kann. Dabei betrachte ich die Interaktion mit räumlichen Geräten im Vergleich zur Touch-Eingabe, die Verwendung zusätzlicher mobiler Geräte als Controller und das Potenzial transparenter Interaktionspanels. Um die dritte Frage zu beantworten, stelle ich schließlich meine Forschung darüber vor, wie Benutzerinteraktion in immersiver Mixed-Reality direkt in der realen Umgebung analysiert werden kann und wie dies neue Erkenntnisse liefern kann. Insgesamt trage ich mit meiner Forschung durch Interaktions- und Visualisierungskonzepte, Software-Prototypen und Ergebnisse aus mehreren Nutzerstudien zu der Frage bei, wie räumliche Interaktionstechniken die Erkundung von immersiven Mixed-Reality-Visualisierungen unterstützen können

User-centred design of flexible hypermedia for a mobile guide: Reflections on the hyperaudio experience

A user-centred design approach involves end-users from the very beginning. Considering users at the early stages compels designers to think in terms of utility and usability and helps develop the system on what is actually needed. This paper discusses the case of HyperAudio, a context-sensitive adaptive and mobile guide to museums developed in the late 90s. User requirements were collected via a survey to understand visitors’ profiles and visit styles in Natural Science museums. The knowledge acquired supported the specification of system requirements, helping defining user model, data structure and adaptive behaviour of the system. User requirements guided the design decisions on what could be implemented by using simple adaptable triggers and what instead needed more sophisticated adaptive techniques, a fundamental choice when all the computation must be done on a PDA. Graphical and interactive environments for developing and testing complex adaptive systems are discussed as a further step towards an iterative design that considers the user interaction a central point. The paper discusses how such an environment allows designers and developers to experiment with different system’s behaviours and to widely test it under realistic conditions by simulation of the actual context evolving over time. The understanding gained in HyperAudio is then considered in the perspective of the developments that followed that first experience: our findings seem still valid despite the passed time

Barehand Mode Switching in Touch and Mid-Air Interfaces

Raskin defines a mode as a distinct setting within an interface where the same user input will produce results different to those it would produce in other settings. Most interfaces have multiple modes in which input is mapped to different actions, and, mode-switching is simply the transition from one mode to another. In touch interfaces, the current mode can change how a single touch is interpreted: for example, it could draw a line, pan the canvas, select a shape, or enter a command. In Virtual Reality (VR), a hand gesture-based 3D modelling application may have different modes for object creation, selection, and transformation. Depending on the mode, the movement of the hand is interpreted differently. However, one of the crucial factors determining the effectiveness of an interface is user productivity. Mode-switching time of different input techniques, either in a touch interface or in a mid-air interface, affects user productivity. Moreover, when touch and mid-air interfaces like VR are combined, making informed decisions pertaining to the mode assignment gets even more complicated. This thesis provides an empirical investigation to characterize the mode switching phenomenon in barehand touch-based and mid-air interfaces. It explores the potential of using these input spaces together for a productivity application in VR. And, it concludes with a step towards defining and evaluating the multi-faceted mode concept, its characteristics and its utility, when designing user interfaces more generally

Understanding user interactions in stereoscopic head-mounted displays

2022 Spring.Includes bibliographical references.Interacting in stereoscopic head mounted displays can be difficult. There are not yet clear standards for how interactions in these environments should be performed. In virtual reality there are a number of well designed interaction techniques; however, augmented reality interaction techniques still need to be improved before they can be easily used. This dissertation covers work done towards understanding how users navigate and interact with virtual environments that are displayed in stereoscopic head-mounted displays. With this understanding, existing techniques from virtual reality devices can be transferred to augmented reality where appropriate, and where that is not the case, new interaction techniques can be developed. This work begins by observing how participants interact with virtual content using gesture alone, speech alone, and the combination of gesture+speech during a basic object manipulation task in augmented reality. Later, a complex 3-dimensional data-exploration environment is developed and refined. That environment is capable of being used in both augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), either asynchronously or simultaneously. The process of iteratively designing that system and the design choices made during its implementation are provided for future researchers working on complex systems. This dissertation concludes with a comparison of user interactions and navigation in that complex environment when using either an augmented or virtual reality display. That comparison contributes new knowledge on how people perform object manipulations between the two devices. When viewing 3D visualizations, users will need to feel able to navigate the environment. Without careful attention to proper interaction technique design, people may struggle to use the developed system. These struggles may range from a system that is uncomfortable and not fit for long-term use, or they could be as major as causing new users to not being able to interact in these environments at all. Getting the interactions right for AR and VR environments is a step towards facilitating their widespread acceptance. This dissertation provides the groundwork needed to start designing interaction techniques around how people utilize their personal space, virtual space, body, tools, and feedback systems