MistForm: adaptive shape changing fog screens

We present MistForm, a shape changing fog display that can support one or two users interacting with either 2D or 3D content. Mistform combines affordances from both shape changing interfaces and mid-air displays. For example, a concave display can maintain content in comfortable reach for a single user, while a convex shape can support several users engaged on individual tasks. MistForm also enables unique interaction possibilities by exploiting the synergies between shape changing interfaces and mid-air fog displays. For instance, moving the screen will affect the brightness and blurriness of the screen at specific locations around the display, creating spaces with similar (collaboration) or different visibility (personalized content). We describe the design of MistForm and analyse its inherent challenges, such as image distortion and uneven brightness on dynamic curved surfaces. We provide a machine learning approach to characterize the shape of the screen and a rendering algorithm to remove aberrations. We finally explore novel interactive possibilities and reflect on their potential and limitations

SoundBender: dynamic acoustic control behind obstacles

Ultrasound manipulation is growing in popularity in the HCI community with applications in haptics, on-body interaction, and levitation-based displays. Most of these applications share two key limitations: a) the complexity of the sound fields that can be produced is limited by the physical size of the transducers; and b) no obstacles can be present between the transducers and the control point. We present SoundBender, a hybrid system that overcomes these limitations by combining the versatility of phased arrays of transducers (PATs) with the precision of acoustic metamaterials. In this paper, we explain our approach to design and implement such hybrid modulators (i.e. to create complex sound fields) and methods to manipulate the field dynamically (i.e. stretch, steer). We demonstrate our concept using self-bending beams enabling both levitation and tactile feedback around an obstacle and present example applications enabled by SoundBender

Recon?gurable mid-air displays

This thesis addressed the di?culties involved in recon?guring permeable mid-air displays (e.g., fog screens) through the experimental investigations of three interactive prototypes: MistForm, SoundBender, and SonicSpray. Each of the prototypes includes their speci?c recon?gurability techniques. The discussion begins in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 described a straightforward technique used by MistForm to coarsely and mechanically recon?gure the permeable mid-air display. MistForm can adaptively deform its display surface to a speci?c condition through linear mist emitters controlled by ?ve actuators. It is capable of turning problems into solutions, for example, a concave display can be used as a shared screen while convex shape as a personal screen. However, the investigation found the MistForm to be large and noisy. These challenges have led to a study investigation of SoundBender in Chapter 3. Chapter 3 described an investigation of a hybrid technique that recon?gured non-solid di?users. The method can precisely manipulate any given complex sound ?eld, encoded by a metamaterial (MM) mounted on phased array transducer (PAT). The force from the sound a?ected the surrounding particles. The technique can be used to recon?gure matter such as paper, mist, and ?ame in air space. However, the chapter did not focus on coordinating its use speci?cally for permeable mid-air displays. Therefore, this thesis carried out an investigation of SonicSpray in Chapter 4. It describes a technique to recon?gure mid-air display of permeable matter (i.e., aerosols) precisely by using a small farm factor PAT. This thesis ends with a conclusion in Chapter 5. The next generation of mid-air displays needs to be in small form factor, multipurpose and controllable, which have been introduced and demonstrated in this thesis. The research in this thesis can facilitate the future design of displays. However, this thesis highlights the response rate of the permeable particles, the primary concern yet to be solved. The air?ow speed of the particles was found to be decreased proportionally to the number of transducers used. In the future, for better control the display, researchers should improve the response rate of the particles, for example, using sources with higher sound power

Improving E-Commerce Application through Sense of Agency of a Calibrated Interactive VR Application

Virtual reality (VR) technologies create and control different virtual worlds instead of the actual environment, and this contributes to the feeling of control known as the sense of agency (SoA). The SoA exists from the contrast between the expected sensory consequence of one’s action from the efference copy and the real sensory effects. However, the size representation of objects differs between the physical and virtual worlds due to certain technical limitations, such as the VR application’s virtual hand not reflecting the user’s actual hand size. These limitations will incur low quality of perception and SoA for digital application. This paper proposed a proof-of-concept of an interactive e-commerce application that incorporates VR capability and size calibration mechanism. The mechanism used a calibration method based on the reciprocal scale factor from the virtual object to its real counterpart. A study of SoA focusing on user perception and interaction was conducted. The proposed method was tested on 22 participants who were also online shopping users. Nearly half of the participants (45%) bought online products frequently, with at least one transaction per day. The outcome indicated that the proposed method improved 47 percent of user perception and interaction as compared to the conventional e-commerce application with its static texts and images. The proposed method is rudimentary yet effective and can be easily implemented in any digital field

The Utilization of Template Matching Method for License Plate Recognition: A Case Study in Malaysia

Automatic License plate detection and recognition system is special form of optical character recognition and has been an active research domain in image processing field. However, the accuracy is varied due to different styles of number plates en- dorsed. Besides, the characters on Malaysia license plate are in one or two lines. Thus, the proposed license plate recognition (LPR) technique of this research is able to achieve the best recognition performance based on Malaysia license plate vehicle registration number characters. This paper presents a study of applying the template matching method for character image recognition. The database of characters and license plate image has been created by collecting images from various type of car. The initial pre-processing involves image enhancement, binarization, filtering and segmenting of license plate. There are 100 license plates that contain 693 characters have been tested, and the result shown that 92.78% of all characters is correctly recognized. Thus,template matching can be classified as one of the promising algorithm for recognizing Malaysia license plate

SonicSpray: a technique to reconfigure permeable mid-air displays

Permeable, mid-air displays, such as those using fog or water mist are limited by our ability to shape and control the aerosol and deal with two major issues: (1) the size and complexity of the system, and (2) the creation of laminar flow, to retain display quality. Here we present SonicSpray, a technique using ultrasonic Bessel beams to create reconfigurable mid-air displays. We build a prototype from low-cost, off-the-shelf parts. We explore the potential and limitations of SonicSpray to create and redirect laminar flows of fog. We demonstrate a working prototype that precisely controls laminar aerosols through only 6x6 ultrasound transducers array. We describe the implementation steps to build the device, verify the control and projection algorithm for the display, and evaluate its performance. We finally report our exploration of several useful applications, in learning, entertainment and arts