A design pattern for multimodal and multidevice user interfaces

In this paper, we introduce the MVIC pattern for creating multidevice and multimodal interfaces. We discuss the advantages provided by introducing a new component to the MVC pattern for those interfaces which must adapt to different devices and modalities. The proposed solution is based on an input model defining equivalent and complementary sequence of inputs for the same interaction. In addition, we discuss Djestit, a javascript library which allows creating multidevice and multimodal input models for web applications, applying the aforementioned pattern. The library supports the integration of multiple devices (Kinect 2, Leap Motion, touchscreens) and different modalities (gestural, vocal and touch). Copyright is held by the owner/author(s)

Geomaterials and decay forms of the coastal towers of Piscinni and Foghe, Weastern Sardinia

[EN] The distribution of Coastal Towers in Sardinia testify that foreign invasions, which occurred several times over the centuries, were particularly frequent and dangerous. The beginning of the eighth century signed an increase of the attacks from the sea. The most of Coastal Towers were built in the period of Spanish rule, from 1583 to 1720. Despite numerous restorations over the years, many of these defensive structures are in critical conditions, some also affected by structural collapse. The building materials are closely related to local geological outcrops, and consist of sedimentary, magmatic and metamorphic rocks. Study of different lithotypes allowed assessing the vulnerability of different materials in different environmental conditions. Salts, transported by aerosols and deposited inside the porous structures, are the principal cause of decay of the building materials. Chemical-physical and mineralogical-petrographic analyses, performed on some Towers allowed making some general assessments on their conservation status and restoration projects.Carcangiu, G.; Meloni, P.; Palomba, M.; Cocco, O.; Sitzia, F.; Murru, A.; Carboni, M.... (2015). Geomaterials and decay forms of the coastal towers of Piscinni and Foghe, Weastern Sardinia. En Defensive architecture of the mediterranean: XV to XVIII centuries. Vol. I. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 345-352. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1753OCS34535

Durability of repair mortars used in restoration of a Sardinian coastal tower: assessment after ten years

[EN] This study reports the results of investigations on conservation conditions of an ancient tower, called Torre del Pozzo, located in the S-W coast of Sardinia, restored about ten years ago. The tower suffers from serious problems related to vulnerability of building materials, particularly limestone and sandstones and aerial lime mortar with poor physical-mechanical properties. Over the centuries the materials were subjected to aggressive actions (wind corrasion and salt crystallization) causing an intense erosion of the walls with consequent partial collapse of the structure. About ten years ago a restoration involved the mortars and only the replacement and integration of ashlars deteriorated. After about 10 years from this intervention, some inspections have been carried out in order to assess the effectiveness of the intervention and the state of preservation of the tower. This paper focuses on analyses and tests carried out to assess condition and durability of the repair mortars.Meloni, P.; Carcangiu, G.; Palomba, M.; Enzo, S.; Carboni, M.; Cocco, O.; Casti, M.... (2015). Durability of repair mortars used in restoration of a Sardinian coastal tower: assessment after ten years. En Defensive architecture of the mediterranean: XV to XVIII centuries. Vol. II. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 397-44. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1761OCS3974

Methodological approach in the conservation of coastal fortifications

[EN] The historical and artistic value of Coastal Towers justifies the recovery of these emblematic artifacts. For the achievement of this objective we propose a methodological approach including: i) architectural relief also by 3D laser scanner and collection of historical data; ii) macroscopic semi-quantitative evaluation of the decay, iii) application of diagnostic quantitative chemical-physical-mechanical methodologies, to assess the decay intensity, and define the criticalities for planning the restoration. The i step allows the graphic rendering of the building showing the geometry and the relationships between the parties. The ii step allows a preliminary understanding of the building materials, macroscopic alteration forms, monument features, acquisition of information about potential causes and decay mechanisms. During the iii step, sampling of building materials is planned. Laboratory analyses, to determine the soluble salts, crystalline phases, porosity as well as micro-textural features of the materials, are carried out by the application of suitable techniques.Carcangiu, G.; Columbu, S.; Meloni, P.; Carboni, M.; Casti, M.; Cocco, O.; Murru, A.... (2015). Methodological approach in the conservation of coastal fortifications. En Defensive architecture of the mediterranean: XV to XVIII centuries. Vol. I. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 341-344. https://doi.org/10.4995/FORTMED2015.2015.1752OCS34134

G-Gene: a gene alignment method for online partial stroke gestures recognition

The large availability of touch-sensitive screens fostered the research in gesture recognition. The Machine Learning community focused mainly on accuracy and robustness to noise, creating classifiers that precisely recognize gestures after their performance. Instead, the User Interface Engineering community developed compositional gesture descriptions that model gestures and their sub-parts. They are suitable for building guidance systems, but they lack a robust and accurate recognition support. In this paper, we establish a compromise between the accuracy and the provided information introducing G-Gene, a method for transforming compositional stroke gesture definitions into profile Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), able to provide both a good accuracy and information on gesture sub-parts. It supports online recognition without using any global feature, and it updates the information while receiving the input stream, with an accuracy useful for prototyping the interaction. We evaluated the approach in a user interface development task, showing that it requires less time and effort for creating guidance systems with respect to common gesture classification approaches

SnAIR drum: A gesture interface for rhythm practice

The availability of standard devices for gestural interaction supports the distribution on the web of interactive teaching material for learning music. In this paper, we focus on rhythm practice, introducing an exercise platform that exploits gestural interaction for tracking the user's movements and a web-based environment for loading exercises and checking his/her performance. We discuss the design and the technical implementation of the solution. Copyright is held by the authors/owner(s)

DEICTIC: a compositional and declarative gesture description based on hidden markov models

The consumer-level devices that track the user's gestures eased the design and the implementation of interactive applications relying on body movements as input. Gesture recognition based on computer vision and machine-learning focus mainly on accuracy and robustness. The resulting classifiers label precisely gestures after their performance, but they do not provide intermediate information during the execution. Human-Computer Interaction research focused instead on providing an easy and effective guidance for performing and discovering interactive gestures. The compositional approaches developed for solving such problem provide information on both the whole gesture and on its sub-parts, but they exploit heuristic techniques that have a low recognition accuracy. In this paper, we introduce DEICTIC, a compositional and declarative description for stroke gestures, which uses basic Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) to recognise meaningful predefined primitives (gesture sub-parts) and it composes them to recognise complex gestures. It provides information for supporting gesture guidance and it reaches an accuracy comparable with state-of-the-art approaches, evaluated on two datasets from the literature. Through a developer evaluation, we show that the implementation of a guidance system with DEICTIC requires an effort comparable to compositional approaches, while the definition procedure and the perceived recognition accuracy is comparable to machine learning

Web5VR: a flexible framework for integrating Virtual Reality input and output devices on the web

The availability of consumer-level devices for both visualising and interacting with Virtual Reality (VR) environments opens the opportunity to introduce more immersive contents and experiences, even on the web. For reaching a wider audience, developing VR applications in a web environment requires a flexible adaptation to the different input and output devices that are currently available. This paper examines the required support and explores how to develop VR applications based on web technologies that can adapt to different VR devices. We summarize the main engineering challenges and we describe a flexible framework for integrating and exploiting various VR devices for both input and output. Using such framework, we describe how we re-implemented four manipulation techniques from the literature to enable them within the same application, providing details on how we adapted its parts for different input and output devices such as Kinect and Leap Motion. Finally, we briefly examine the usability of the final application using our framework

Comparing 3D trajectories for simple mid-air gesture recognition

User interfaces based on mid-air gesture recognition are expected to become popular in the near future due to the increasing diffusion of virtual, mixed reality applications and smart devices. The design of this kind of interfaces would be clearly helped by the availability of simple and effective methods to compare short 3D trajectories, allowing fast and accurate recognition of command gestures given a few examples. This approach, quite popular in 2D touch-based interfaces with the so-called \u201cdollar\u201d algorithm family, has not been deeply investigated for 3D mid-air gestures. In this paper, we explore several metrics that can be used for mid-air gesture comparison and present experimental tests performed to analyze their effectiveness on practical tasks. By adopting smart choices in gesture traces processing and comparing, it was possible to obtain very good results in the retrieval and recognition of simple command gestures, from complete or even partial hand trajectories. The approach was also extended in order to recognize gestures characterized by both hand and finger motions and tested on a recent benchmark, reaching state of the art performances