Accessibility and tangible interaction in distributed workspaces based on multi-touch surfaces

[EN] Traditional interaction mechanisms in distributed digital spaces often fail to consider the intrinsic properties of action, perception, and communication among workgroups, which may affect access to the common resources used to mutually organize information. By developing suitable spatial geometries and natural interaction mechanisms, distributed spaces can become blended where the physical and virtual boundaries of local and remote spaces merge together to provide the illusion of a single unified space. In this paper, we discuss the importance of blended interaction in distributed spaces and the particular challenges faced when designing accessible technology. We illustrate this discussion through a new tangible interaction mechanism for collaborative spaces based on tabletop system technology implemented with optical frames. Our tangible elements facilitate the exchange of digital information in distributed collaborative settings by providing a physical manifestation of common digital operations. The tangibles are designed as passive elements that do not require the use of any additional hardware or external power while maintaining a high degree of accuracy.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and the European Regional Development Fund, through the ANNOTA Project (Ref. TIN2013-46036-C3-1-R).Salvador-Herranz, G.; Camba, J.; Contero, M.; Naya Sanchis, F. (2018). Accessibility and tangible interaction in distributed workspaces based on multi-touch surfaces. Universal Access in the Information Society. 17(2):247-256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-017-0563-7S247256172Arkin, E.M., Chew, L.P., Huttenlocher, D.P., Kedem, K., Mitchell, J.S.B.: An efficiently computable metric for comparing polygonal shapes. IEEE Trans. Acoust. 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Recreating Daily life in Pompeii

[EN] We propose an integrated Mixed Reality methodology for recreating ancient daily life that features realistic simulations of animated virtual human actors (clothes, body, skin, face) who augment real environments and re-enact staged storytelling dramas. We aim to go further from traditional concepts of static cultural artifacts or rigid geometrical and 2D textual augmentations and allow for 3D, interactive, augmented historical character-based event representations in a mobile and wearable setup. This is the main contribution of the described work as well as the proposed extensions to AR Enabling technologies: a VR/AR character simulation kernel framework with real-time, clothed virtual humans that are dynamically superimposed on live camera input, animated and acting based on a predefined, historically correct scenario. We demonstrate such a real-time case study on the actual site of ancient Pompeii.The work presented has been supported by the Swiss Federal Office for Education and Science and the EU IST programme, in frame of the EU IST LIFEPLUS 34545 and EU ICT INTERMEDIA 38417 projects.Magnenat-Thalmann, N.; Papagiannakis, G. (2010). Recreating Daily life in Pompeii. Virtual Archaeology Review. 1(2):19-23. https://doi.org/10.4995/var.2010.4679OJS192312P. MILGRAM, F. KISHINO, (1994) "A Taxonomy of Mixed Reality Visual Displays", IEICE Trans. Information Systems, vol. E77-D, no. 12, pp. 1321-1329R. AZUMA, Y. BAILLOT, R. BEHRINGER, S. FEINER, S. JULIER, B. MACINTYRE, (2001) "Recent Advances in Augmented Reality", IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, November/December http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/38.963459D. STRICKER, P. DÄHNE, F. SEIBERT, I. CHRISTOU, L. ALMEIDA, N. IOANNIDIS, (2001) "Design and Development Issues for ARCHEOGUIDE: An Augmented Reality-based Cultural Heritage On-site Guide", EuroImage ICAV 3D Conference in Augmented Virtual Environments and Three-dimensional Imaging, Mykonos, Greece, 30 May-01 JuneW. WOHLGEMUTH, G. TRIEBFÜRST, (2000)"ARVIKA: augmented reality for development, production and service", DARE 2000 on Designing augmented reality environments, Elsinore, Denmark http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/354666.354688H. TAMURA, H. YAMAMOTO, A. KATAYAMA, (2001) "Mixed reality: Future dreams seen at the border between real and virtual worlds", Computer Graphics and Applications, vol.21, no.6, pp.64-70 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/38.963462M. PONDER, G. PAPAGIANNAKIS, T. MOLET, N. MAGNENAT-THALMANN, D. THALMANN, (2003) "VHD++ Development Framework: Towards Extendible, Component Based VR/AR Simulation Engine Featuring Advanced Virtual Character Technologies", IEEE Computer Society Press, CGI Proceedings, pp. 96-104 http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/cgi.2003.1214453Archaeological Superintendence of Pompeii (2009), http://www.pompeiisites.orgG. PAPAGIANNAKIS, S. SCHERTENLEIB, B. O'KENNEDY , M. POIZAT, N.MAGNENAT-THALMANN, A. STODDART, D.THALMANN, (2005) "Mixing Virtual and Real scenes in the site of ancient Pompeii",Journal of CAVW, p 11-24, Volume 16, Issue 1, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, FebruaryEGGES, A., PAPAGIANNAKIS, G., MAGNENAT-THALMANN, N., (2007) "Presence and Interaction in Mixed Reality", The Visual Computer, Springer-Verlag Volume 23, Number 5, MaySEO H., MAGNENAT-THALMANN N. (2003), An Automatic Modeling of Human Bodies from Sizing Parameters. In ACM SIGGRAPH, Symposium on Interactive 3D Graphics, pp19-26, pp234. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/641480.641487VOLINO P., MAGNENAT-THALMANN N. (2006), Resolving Surface Collisions through Intersection Contour Minimization. In ACM Transactions on Graphics (Siggraph 2006 proceedings), 25(3), pp 1154-1159. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1179352.1142007http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1141911.1142007PAPAGIANNAKIS, G., SINGH, G., MAGNENAT-THALMANN, N., (2008) "A survey of mobile and wireless technologies for augmented reality systems", Journal of Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, John Wiley and Sons Ltd, 19, 1, pp. 3-22, February http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cav.22

Levitating Particle Displays with Interactive Voxels

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Applying a User-centred Approach to Interactive Visualization Design

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A review of the empirical studies of computer supported human-to-human communication

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