Identification of objects properties

International audienceTrivially speaking, identification of the properties of an object is a part of the process of recognition of that object. It is useful to distinguish between recognition tasks that may be considered as spatially and topologically oriented and tasks that are physically-oriented (or dynamically oriented)

Shapes and contours

International audienceShapes and contours are usually considered in their geometrical features. One of the challenge -- central for experimenting enaction and designing enactive interfaces-- is that virtual realities and haptic interaction allow to experiment the ambiguity of the notion of contours and shapes and their role in the constitution of the concept of object

Simulation

International audienceIn the context of computer, the primary situation in which the term simulation is used is when the result of the computation of an algorithm produces data that are similar to data produced by a real (non-computerized) system, considered as a reference system. But it is generally accepted, in computer sciences, that the word simulation refers to a second approach: the computation of the cause that produces a given phenomenon, and not to the computation/synthesis of the phenomenon itself

Haptics, haptic devices

International audienceThe term haptic devices is now commonly used by a wide professional community (including interactive robotics, teleoperation and human-computer interfaces, and... the field of haptics). However, we assume that it is not sufficiently precise to be helpful. This includes all the electromechanical actuating systems able to stimulate any part of the haptic perceptual system, eventually correlated with electromechanical sensing systems to acquire data on human's gestures and movements. Indeed, a haptic device comprehends necessarily an actuator, which role is to stimulate human haptic perceptual system

Instrumental interaction

International audienceThe expression instrumental interaction as been introduced by Claude Cadoz to identify a human-object interaction during which a human manipulates a physical object - an instrument - in order to perform a manual task. Classical examples of instrumental interaction are all the professional manual tasks: playing violin, cutting fabrics by hand, moulding a paste, etc.... Instrumental interaction differs from other types of interaction (called symbolic or iconic interaction) in which the media supporting the interaction are rather symbols (such as languages), icons (such as graphics), earcons, etc. It may differ also from a type of manipulation in which the manipulated object is not an instrument

Teleoperation / telepresence / telesymbiosis

International audienceIn parallel with the evolution of visual tools of Computer Graphics for representation and interaction with computers, the link between action and vision has been also fundamentally questioned in teleoperation

Immersion vs. vis-à-vis

International audienceThe axis immersion -- vis-à-vis is an efficient mean to qualify virtual reality and virtual environments systems. Further, it addresses the fundamental question of the types of relation between humans and the external world

Physical Models in animation: towards a Modular and Instrumental Approach

International audienceIn 1978, computers were not enough powerfull for large simulations required by physical models. For this, we were forced to place different representations of physical universe in relation and to confronte them with computer representation capabilities. We will speak about this point, explain and justify the chosen principles, which are now implemented in the CORDIS-ANIMA System

Presence, in computerized environments

International audienceThe distinction of what is real and what is non-real is an usual and long lasting question of philosophy, as well as of physics. Since the 50's, with the demonstration of Shanon's theorem and its implementation in digital to analog converters, real sensorial data has begun to be producible ex nihilo, i.e. without any real objects, by abstract and symbolic entities such as numbers and algorithms. Indeed, a new problem of presence appears when human beings are (more and more frequently) called upon to perceive and act on spaces that are increasingly distant or different from our current physical world, by means of new instruments as tools for telecommunication, teleoperation, and computer representation, These new tools raise with growing urgency the question of the presence of these distant spaces

Algorithm

International audienceComputation constraints can be due to the formal aspects of the computation itself: a program that corresponds to a formal mathematical model able to be implemented on a specific computation automaton, called computer. This specific mathematical model was called algorithm, from the name of the Arab mathematician Al-Huwarizmi