The cueTable Cooperative Multi-Touch Interactive Tabletop: Implementation and User Feedback

Es wurde ein multi-touch interaktives Tabletop als Basistechnologie zur Exploration neuer Interaktionskonzepte für kooperative multi-touch Anwendungen entwickelt. In dieser Publikation stellen wir vor, wie ein kooperatives multi-touch interaktives Tabletop basierend auf günstiger Standard-Hardware mit geringem Realisierungsaufwand gebaut werden kann. Wir präsentieren eine Software-Anwendung, die wir dafür entwickelt haben. And wir berichten über Benutzerkommentare zum Tabletop und der Anwendung.We developed a multi-touch interactive tabletop as a base technology to explore new interaction concepts for cooperative multi-touch applications. In this paper we explain how to build a cooperative multi-touch interactive tabletop with standard and low-budget hardware and little implementation effort. We present a software application we developed. And we report on user feedback to the tabletop and the application

Predicting sex as a soft-biometrics from device interaction swipe gestures

Touch and multi-touch gestures are becoming the most common way to interact with technology such as smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices. The latest touch-screen input capacities have tremendously increased the quantity and quality of available gesture data, which has led to the exploration of its use in multiple disciplines from psychology to biometrics. Following research studies undertaken in similar modalities such as keystroke and mouse usage biometrics, the present work proposes the use of swipe gesture data for the prediction of soft-biometrics, specifically the user's sex. This paper details the software and protocol used for the data collection, the feature set extracted and subsequent machine learning analysis. Within this analysis, the BestFirst feature selection technique and classification algorithms (naïve Bayes, logistic regression, support vector machine and decision tree) have been tested. The results of this exploratory analysis have confirmed the possibility of sex prediction from the swipe gesture data, obtaining an encouraging 78% accuracy rate using swipe gesture data from two different directions. These results will hopefully encourage further research in this area, where the prediction of soft-biometrics traits from swipe gesture data can play an important role in enhancing the authentication processes based on touch-screen devices

Design and User Satisfaction of Interactive Maps for Visually Impaired People

Multimodal interactive maps are a solution for presenting spatial information to visually impaired people. In this paper, we present an interactive multimodal map prototype that is based on a tactile paper map, a multi-touch screen and audio output. We first describe the different steps for designing an interactive map: drawing and printing the tactile paper map, choice of multi-touch technology, interaction technologies and the software architecture. Then we describe the method used to assess user satisfaction. We provide data showing that an interactive map - although based on a unique, elementary, double tap interaction - has been met with a high level of user satisfaction. Interestingly, satisfaction is independent of a user's age, previous visual experience or Braille experience. This prototype will be used as a platform to design advanced interactions for spatial learning

Mapping Tasks to Interactions for Graph Exploration and Graph Editing on Interactive Surfaces

Graph exploration and editing are still mostly considered independently and systems to work with are not designed for todays interactive surfaces like smartphones, tablets or tabletops. When developing a system for those modern devices that supports both graph exploration and graph editing, it is necessary to 1) identify what basic tasks need to be supported, 2) what interactions can be used, and 3) how to map these tasks and interactions. This technical report provides a list of basic interaction tasks for graph exploration and editing as a result of an extensive system review. Moreover, different interaction modalities of interactive surfaces are reviewed according to their interaction vocabulary and further degrees of freedom that can be used to make interactions distinguishable are discussed. Beyond the scope of graph exploration and editing, we provide an approach for finding and evaluating a mapping from tasks to interactions, that is generally applicable. Thus, this work acts as a guideline for developing a system for graph exploration and editing that is specifically designed for interactive surfaces.Comment: 21 pages, minor corrections (typos etc.

Mid-air haptic rendering of 2D geometric shapes with a dynamic tactile pointer

An important challenge that affects ultrasonic midair haptics, in contrast to physical touch, is that we lose certain exploratory procedures such as contour following. This makes the task of perceiving geometric properties and shape identification more difficult. Meanwhile, the growing interest in mid-air haptics and their application to various new areas requires an improved understanding of how we perceive specific haptic stimuli, such as icons and control dials in mid-air. We address this challenge by investigating static and dynamic methods of displaying 2D geometric shapes in mid-air. We display a circle, a square, and a triangle, in either a static or dynamic condition, using ultrasonic mid-air haptics. In the static condition, the shapes are presented as a full outline in mid-air, while in the dynamic condition, a tactile pointer is moved around the perimeter of the shapes. We measure participants’ accuracy and confidence of identifying shapes in two controlled experiments (n1 = 34, n2 = 25). Results reveal that in the dynamic condition people recognise shapes significantly more accurately, and with higher confidence. We also find that representing polygons as a set of individually drawn haptic strokes, with a short pause at the corners, drastically enhances shape recognition accuracy. Our research supports the design of mid-air haptic user interfaces in application scenarios such as in-car interactions or assistive technology in education

Orientation of the maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) in the Orange basin and Outeniqua sub-basins of South Africa : neotectonic implications

South Africa lies within an intraplate setting, characterised by sparse, scattered, low-magnitude seismicity not easily correlated with known neotectonic features. Recent seismicity has repeatedly been shown to result from the reactivation of pre-existing geological structures, typically large faults or shear zones, which are preferentially-aligned to the contemporary stress field. Expanding the catalogue of stress data for the region is therefore vital to better understand the regional stress field pattern and aid in identifying potentially seismogenic structures. In these intraplate regions, reliable high-quality indicators of maximum horizontal compressive stress (SHmax) are difficult to obtain in the absence of earthquake-derived focal mechanism solutions (so called "beach balls"). In South Africa however, extensive hydrocarbon exploration drilling in the Mesozoic offshore provide an opportunity to utilise the borehole breakout technique to derive quality SHmax orientation data. In collaboration with the World Stress Map Project (WSM), and utilising borehole logs provided by the Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA), training and software was provided to review, analyse and visualise borehole breakouts observed in 4-arm calliper logs from exploration areas in the Outeniqua and Orange basins. Digital music software can limit the forms of music we create by using interfaces that directly copy those of the analogue instruments that came before. In this study we report on a new multi-touch interface that affords a completely new form of drum sequencing. Based on ideas from Avant-guard music and embodied interaction, a technology probe was created and then evaluated by a wide range of users. We found that for users with no musical training, and for users with a large amount of musical training, the software did allow them to be more creative. However, users with limited training on existing sequencing software found the new interface challenging

From Big Data to Big Displays: High-Performance Visualization at Blue Brain

Blue Brain has pushed high-performance visualization (HPV) to complement its HPC strategy since its inception in 2007. In 2011, this strategy has been accelerated to develop innovative visualization solutions through increased funding and strategic partnerships with other research institutions. We present the key elements of this HPV ecosystem, which integrates C++ visualization applications with novel collaborative display systems. We motivate how our strategy of transforming visualization engines into services enables a variety of use cases, not only for the integration with high-fidelity displays, but also to build service oriented architectures, to link into web applications and to provide remote services to Python applications.Comment: ISC 2017 Visualization at Scale worksho