In Search for an Ideal Computer-Assisted Drawing System

Diagram drawing with conventional computer-assisted drawing(CAD) editors often tend to take considerable amount of time despite their seeming ease of use. We analyzed the problems of such systems focusing on the problem of cognitive overload, and observed that 1) the necessity of cognitive planning process in current CAD system causes the problems and that 2) reducing the overload can lead to fundamental improvement in overall drawing efficiency. We have conducted an experiment to verify these observations by comparing a typical drawing system and our prototype drawing system called Interactive Beautification, which combines the ease of freehand drawing and precision of traditional drawing editors by extracting various constraints in input strokes, and generating the desired diagrams automatically. Results show that significant amount of time is spent for cognitive planning process, and reduction of such planning time by Interactive Beautification can significantly improve the efficien..

Beyond RFS and MPG: Promoting Cleaner Trucking Services

Warren Lavey - Adjunct Professor in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences as well as the School of Earth, Society, and Environment, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Technologies to cut truck emissions are available and cost-effective, and should be encouraged by a range of government and private actions. In 2013, Chicago approved the expansion of a railroad terminal contingent on retrofitting dozens of trucks with clean diesel filters. Illinois agencies are reforming freight and package delivery purchasing programs to implement the Transportation Sustainability Procurement Program Act of 2013. Similarly, the U.S. General Services Administration is applying new environmental preferences in selecting transportation vendors and tracking their performance.Ope

The Continuous Interaction Space: Interaction Techniques Unifying Touch and Gesture On and Above a Digital Surface

Abstract. The rising popularity of digital table surfaces has spawned considerable interest in new interaction techniques. Most interactions fall into one of two modalities: 1) direct touch and multi-touch (by hand and by tangibles) directly on the surface, and 2) hand gestures above the surface. The limitation is that these two modalities ignore the rich interaction space between them. To move beyond this limitation, we first contribute a unification of these discrete interaction modalities called the continuous interaction space. The idea is that many interaction techniques can be developed that go beyond these two modalities, where they can leverage the space between them. That is, we believe that the underlying system should treat the space on and above the surface as a continuum, where a person can use touch, gestures, and tangibles anywhere in the space and naturally move between them. Our second contribution illustrates this, where we introduce a variety of interaction categories that exploit the space between these modalities. For example, wit