Improving Collaborative Drawing using HTML5

This research looks into improving online web-based collaborative drawing using HTML5. Although many systems have been developed over a number of years, none of the applications released have been satisfactory for many artists; the core drawing experience was too different from a stand-alone drawing applications. Stand-alone drawing applications have better freedom of control with functions like undo and allow artists to work efficiently with hotkeys. The advent of the HTML5 Canvas Element and Websockets in recent browsers has provided new opportunities for collaborative online interaction. This research used an incremental development approach to build a prototype HTML5 drawing application providing new functionality for online collaborative drawing. The project was supported by two experienced artists throughout investigation, design, implementation and testing. The project artists helped validate design decisions and evaluate the implementation. As a result, a robust HTML5 collaborative drawing application was built. The prototype contains core drawing functionality that existing applications did not. Features include: undo and redo, free canvas transformation, complex hotkey interaction, custom canvas size support, colour wheel, and layers. All these features work smoothly in a fully synchronized network environment under a client-server model. The collaboration system uses an authoritative server structure with local prediction and re-synchronization to hide latency. Although the result is only a prototype, the evaluations from the project artists were very positive. Once more functionality targeted towards social interaction is built, the prototype will be ready for mass public testing. Although there are some issues caused by the immaturity of HTML5 technology, this project affirms its capability for collaborative web applications

Streaming and 3D mapping of agri-data on mobile devices

Farm monitoring and operations generate heterogeneous AGRI-data from a variety of different sources that have the potential to be delivered to users ‘on the go’ and in the field to inform farm decision making. A software framework capable of interfacing with existing web mapping services to deliver in-field farm data on commodity mobile hardware was developed and tested. This raised key research challenges related to: robustness of data steaming methods under typical farm connectivity scenarios, and mapping and 3D rendering of AGRI-data in an engaging and intuitive way. The presentation of AGRI-data in a 3D and interactive context was explored using different visualisation techniques; currently the 2D presentation of AGRI- data is the dominant practice, despite the fact that mobile devices can now support sophisticated 3D graphics via programmable pipelines. The testing found that WebSockets were the most reliable streaming method for high resolution image/texture data. From our focus groups there was no single visualisation technique that was preferred demonstrating that a range of methods is a good way to satisfy a large user base. Improved 3D experience on mobile phones is set to revolutionize the multimedia market and a key challenge is identifying useful 3D visualisation methods and navigation tools that support the exploration of data driven 3D interactive visualisation frameworks for AGRI-data

WebAL Comes of Age: A review of the first 21 years of Artificial Life on the Web

We present a survey of the first 21 years of web-based artificial life (WebAL) research and applications, broadly construed to include the many different ways in which artificial life and web technologies might intersect. Our survey covers the period from 1994—when the first WebAL work appeared—up to the present day, together with a brief discussion of relevant precursors. We examine recent projects, from 2010–2015, in greater detail in order to highlight the current state of the art. We follow the survey with a discussion of common themes and methodologies that can be observed in recent work and identify a number of likely directions for future work in this exciting area