CREATING TOUCHPANEL GRAPHICS FOR CONTROL SYSTEMS

More often than system designers would like to admit, a discrepancy lies between the implementation of audiovisual control systems and their apparent ease of use to a novice or casual user. System designers and programmers are often hampered by the software tools provided by industry manufacturers and cannot reliably create desirable graphical interfaces that match the level of systems they are asked to program and install. Popular consumer trends in portable touchscreen devices, pioneered on devices such as the Apple iPhone, light a way forward into a new era of elegantly solving the audiovisual control system graphical user interface problem. Since expensive specialized hardware can be replaced by readily available consumer devices and a wide variety of tools exists with which to create content, possible alternatives to the current methods of designing the graphical user interface for the audiovisual system are ripe for discovery. Using the latest release of Autodesk Maya 2011, with features such as Python and Pymel, we have developed scripts to generate graphical user interface content for use with audiovisual control systems hardware. Also explored is the potential for a standalone development environment such that audiovisual designers and programmers are not required to operate Maya or adjust scripts to generate content. Given this new level of control over the graphical user interface, coupled with the flexibility of the control system central processor programming, a truly powerful, intuitive, and groundbreaking control interface can finally be realized

Software Performance Engineering using Virtual Time Program Execution

In this thesis we introduce a novel approach to software performance engineering that is based on the execution of code in virtual time. Virtual time execution models the timing-behaviour of unmodified applications by scaling observed method times or replacing them with results acquired from performance model simulation. This facilitates the investigation of "what-if" performance predictions of applications comprising an arbitrary combination of real code and performance models. The ability to analyse code and models in a single framework enables performance testing throughout the software lifecycle, without the need to to extract performance models from code. This is accomplished by forcing thread scheduling decisions to take into account the hypothetical time-scaling or model-based performance specifications of each method. The virtual time execution of I/O operations or multicore targets is also investigated. We explore these ideas using a Virtual EXecution (VEX) framework, which provides performance predictions for multi-threaded applications. The language-independent VEX core is driven by an instrumentation layer that notifies it of thread state changes and method profiling events; it is then up to VEX to control the progress of application threads in virtual time on top of the operating system scheduler. We also describe a Java Instrumentation Environment (JINE), demonstrating the challenges involved in virtual time execution at the JVM level. We evaluate the VEX/JINE tools by executing client-side Java benchmarks in virtual time and identifying the causes of deviations from observed real times. Our results show that VEX and JINE transparently provide predictions for the response time of unmodified applications with typically good accuracy (within 5-10%) and low simulation overheads (25-50% additional time). We conclude this thesis with a case study that shows how models and code can be integrated, thus illustrating our vision on how virtual time execution can support performance testing throughout the software lifecycle

Smart Technologies for Precision Assembly

This open access book constitutes the refereed post-conference proceedings of the 9th IFIP WG 5.5 International Precision Assembly Seminar, IPAS 2020, held virtually in December 2020. The 16 revised full papers and 10 revised short papers presented together with 1 keynote paper were carefully reviewed and selected from numerous submissions. The papers address topics such as assembly design and planning; assembly operations; assembly cells and systems; human centred assembly; and assistance methods in assembly

Eye tracking and gaze interface design for pervasive displays

Eye tracking for pervasive displays in everyday computing is an emerging area in research. There is an increasing number of pervasive displays in our surroundings, such as large displays in public spaces, digital boards in offices and smart televisions at home. Gaze is an attractive input modality for these displays, as people naturally look at objects of interest and use their eyes to seek information. Existing research has applied eye tracking in a variety of fields, but tends to be in constrained environments for lab applications. This thesis investigates how to enable robust gaze sensing in pervasive contexts and how eye tracking can be applied for pervasive displays that we encounter in our daily life. To answer these questions, we identify the technical and design challenges posed by using gaze for pervasive displays. Firstly, in out-of-lab environments, interactions are usually spontaneous where users and systems are unaware of each other beforehand. This poses the technical problem that gaze sensing should not need prior user training and should be robust in unconstrained environments. We develop novel vision-based systems that require only off-the-shelf RGB cameras to address this issue. Secondly, in pervasive contexts, users are usually unaware of gaze interactivity iii of pervasive displays and the technical restrictions of gaze sensing systems. However, there is little knowledge about how to enable people to use gaze interactive systems in daily life. Thus, we design novel interfaces that allow novice users to interact with contents on pervasive displays, and we study the usage of our systems through field deployments. We demonstrate that people can walk up to a gaze interactive system and start to use it immediately without human assistance. Lastly, pervasive displays could also support multiuser co-located collaborations. We explore the use of gaze for collaborative tasks. Our results show that sharing gaze information on shared displays can ease communications and improve collaboration. Although we demonstrate benefits of using gaze for pervasive displays, open challenges remain in enabling gaze interaction in everyday computing and require further investigations. Our research provides a foundation for the rapidly growing field of eye tracking for pervasive displays

Easing the Transition from Inspiration to Implementation: A Rapid Prototyping Platform for Wireless Medium Access Control Protocols

Packet broadcast networks are in widespread use in modern wireless communication systems. Medium access control is a key functionality within such technologies. A substantial research effort has been and continues to be invested into the study of existing protocols and the development of new and specialised ones. Academic researchers are restricted in their studies by an absence of suitable wireless MAC protocol development methods. This thesis describes an environment which allows rapid prototyping and evaluation of wireless medium access control protocols. The proposed design flow allows specification of the protocol using the specification and description language (SDL) formal description technique. A tool is presented to convert the SDL protocol description into a C++ model suitable for integration into both simulation and implementation environments. Simulations at various levels of abstraction are shown to be relevant at different stages of protocol design. Environments based on the Cinderella SDL simulator and the ns-2 network simulator have been developed which allow early functional verification, along with detailed and accurate performance analysis of protocols under development. A hardware platform is presented which allows implementation of protocols with flexibility in the hardware/software trade-off. Measurement facilities are integral to the hardware framework, and provide a means for accurate real-world feedback on protocol performance

Enabling the Development and Implementation of Digital Twins : Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality

Welcome to the 20th International Conference on Construction Applications of Virtual Reality (CONVR 2020). This year we are meeting on-line due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. The overarching theme for CONVR2020 is "Enabling the development and implementation of Digital Twins". CONVR is one of the world-leading conferences in the areas of virtual reality, augmented reality and building information modelling. Each year, more than 100 participants from all around the globe meet to discuss and exchange the latest developments and applications of virtual technologies in the architectural, engineering, construction and operation industry (AECO). The conference is also known for having a unique blend of participants from both academia and industry. This year, with all the difficulties of replicating a real face to face meetings, we are carefully planning the conference to ensure that all participants have a perfect experience. We have a group of leading keynote speakers from industry and academia who are covering up to date hot topics and are enthusiastic and keen to share their knowledge with you. CONVR participants are very loyal to the conference and have attended most of the editions over the last eighteen editions. This year we are welcoming numerous first timers and we aim to help them make the most of the conference by introducing them to other participants

Development and application of modelling techniques in drug design

Structure-based drug design is a creative process that displays several features that make it closer to human reasoning than to machine automation. However, very often the user intervention is limited to the preparation of the input and analysis of the output of a computer simulation. In some cases, allowing human intervention directly in the process could improve the quality of the results by applying the researcher intuition directly into the simulation. Haptic technology has proven to be a useful method to interact in realtime with a virtual environment, enriching the user's experience and allowing for a more natural and direct interaction with three-dimensional systems. Reported in this thesis is the design and implementation of a user-driven computer program for structure-based drug design based on haptic technology and char acterised by a trimodal feedback system and its application alongside more traditional approaches to drug design projects in the anticancer and antiviral area. The software proved to be very useful in several projects, validating the applicability of haptic technology to drug design. The results were in good agreement with those obtained by traditional techniques. Moreover the approach resulted in the identification of novel HCV inhibitors and a putative inhibitor of the dimerisation of EGFR which resulted active in vitro tests

Advanced Information Systems and Technologies

This book comprises the proceedings of the VI International Scientific Conference “Advanced Information Systems and Technologies, AIST-2018”. The proceeding papers cover issues related to system analysis and modeling, project management, information system engineering, intelligent data processing, computer networking and telecomunications, modern methods and information technologies of sustainable development. They will be useful for students, graduate students, researchers who interested in computer science