Research Projects at Eindhoven University of Technology (2004--)

[alphabetically sorted by project acronym] 

ADAG: Adaptive Gaming

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The main objective of this project is to find out the design of optimal challenges in computer games. Based on the theoretical concept of Rauterberg (1995) an adaptive game is developed based on the new adaptation concepts introduced by Spronck (2005) and Spronck et al. (2006). With experiments we will investigate and determine the optimal 'incongruity' level for playing. One of the expected outcomes is a technology going beyond the concept of 'levels' in game design. In a more general perspective, this project can lead to a fundamental new way of understanding human information processing and learning.

Sponsor:

Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.

Cooperation:
Pieter Spronck. This project is carried out in cooperation with MICC-IKAT at Maastricht University (Netherlands).

References:
Rauterberg, M. (1995). About a framework for information and information processing of learning systems. In: E. Falkenberg, W. Hesse,  A. Olive (eds.), Information System Concepts--Towards a consolidation of views (IFIP Working Group 8.1, pp. 54-69). London: Chapman&Hall.

Spronck P., Ponsen M., Sprinkhuizen-Kuyper I., Postma E. (2006). Adaptive Game AI with Dynamic Scripting. Machine Learning, Vol. 63, No. 3, pp. 217-248.

Spronck P. (2005). Adaptive Game AI. Ph.D. thesis, Maastricht University Press, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
 

ALICE:  Cultural Computing

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The project ALICE is about cultural computing as an interactive, entertaining experience inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

The main objective of this project is to find a possible answer for the Western culture to the cultural computing project 'ZENetic Computer' from Tosa and Matsuoka designed for the Eastern culture. Cultural computing is a new research area for interactive systems that can address the cultural layer of the user. In the scope of the project ALICE interactive adventures are experiences provided by an Augmented Reality (AR) environment based on selected parts from Lewis Carroll's book "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". The user assumes the role of Alice and explores an interactive narrative. ALICE is an exploration of interactive story-telling in AR. By exploiting the unique characteristics of AR compared to established media such as film and interactive media, the project uses AR as a new medium for edutainment and entertainment. Innovations include the refashioning of conventions used in film and interactive tools for the development of an AR narrative, and the use of simple artificial virtual and real characters (avatar and robot respectively) to create an immersive interactive experience.

In co-operation with:
Microsoft Research Laboratory, Cambridge, UK.

External relationships:
Marc Cavazza, Ryohei Nakatsu, Ben Salem, Naoko Tosa.

Project team:

Jun Hu (manager), Tijn Kooijmans (assistant), Dirk van de Mortel; Christoph Seyferth, Dima Aliakseyeu, Marco Combetto,  Ben Salem.
 

Presentations:
Rauterberg, M. (2006). Cultural Computing: the ALICE project / Usability in the Future / Emotional Challenges in Future Computing.

References:

Rauterberg M. (2006). How to assess the user’s experience in cultural computing. In: T. Bosenick, M. Hassenzahl, M. Müller-Prove, M. Peissner (Eds.): Usability Professionals 2006 (pp. 12-17). Fraunhofer Informationszentrum Raum und Bau.

Rauterberg M. (2006). Usability in the future –explicit and implicit effects in cultural computing. In: AM. Heinecke, H. Paul (Eds.): Mensch & Computer 2006: Mensch und Computer im StrukturWandel (pp. 29-36). München, Oldenbourg Verlag.

Rauterberg M. (2006). From personal to cultural computing: how to assess a cultural experience. (pp. 13-21) Pabst Science Publisher.
 

Nakatsu R., Rauterberg M., Salem B. (2005). Forms and theories of communication: from multimedia to Kansei mediation. Multimedia Systems, Vol. 11(3), pp. 304-312.

AMHA:  Automatic Mental Health Assistant

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The AMHA (Automatic Mental Health Assistant) project is part of the Mars-500 experiment to be carried out at the Institute for Biomedical Problems (IBMP) in Moscow. The European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Academy of Sciences jointly plan and conduct this experiment in order to simulate a manned mission to Mars. It will provide the unique opportunity to study interactions between crew members while collecting data about their health and performance during experimental isolation. The confinement study will imitate all key peculiarities expected to be present during future missions to Mars (i.e. ultra long duration flight, need for autonomy, complicated communication due to signal delay, and limited stock of expendables).

In co-operation with:
European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Academy of Sciences.

External relationships:
Mark Neerincx, Jack van Loon, Karl Tuyls.

Project team:

Rene Ahn, Emilia Barakova, Roman Gorbunov.
 

Presentations:
-

References:

Gorbunov R., Barakova E., Rauterberg M. (2013). Design of social agents. Neurocomputing, vol. 114, pp. 92-97 [IF=1.634].

ENTERTAINMENT: Theory of Entertainment Computing

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The main objective of this project is to find out what the actual state-of-the-art can say about the different effects of entertainment technology on human behavior. A first literature research study was done to investigate in particular the positive effects (compared to the whole body of literature about negative effects).

Sponsor:

Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.

Cooperation:
Ben Salem. This project is carried out in the scope of the IFIP Working Group 14.3 "Theoretical Basis of Entertainment".

References:
Nakatsu R., Rauterberg M., Vorderer P. (2005). A new framework for entertainment computing: from passive to active experience. In: F. Kishino et al. (Eds.): ICEC 2005, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3711, pp. 1 – 12.

Rauterberg M. (2004). Positive effects of entertainment technology on human behaviour. In: R. Jacquart (ed.), Building the Information Society (pp. 51-58). IFIP, Kluwer Academic Press.

Rauterberg M. (2004). Positive effects of VR technology on human behavior. In: Proceedings of The 14th International Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence - ICAT 2004 (pp. 85-88). KAIST & VRSJ [ISSN 1345-1278].

Rauterberg, M. (2004). Entertainment technology and human behaviour: literature search. Technical Note, No. TUE-ID-04-07-1, Technical University Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
All documents listed in Technical Note, No. TUE-ID-04-07-1 are zipped for download in alphabetically separate files by the first letter of first author's family name:
[A] [B] [C] [D] [EF] [G] [H] [IJ] [K] [L] [M] [NO] [PQ] [R] [S] [T] [UV] [W] [XYZ]

Salem B., Rauterberg M. (2005). Aesthetics as a key dimension for designing ubiquitous entertainment systems. In: M. Minoh & N. Tosa (eds.) The 2nd International Workshop on Ubiquitous Home—ubiquitous society and entertainment (pp. 85-94). NICT Keihanna and Kyoto.

HX.research: Exploring Human Experience through Physiological Measurements

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Design of interactive products and systems started several decades ago. At the begin cognition was emphasized. Recently emotional aspects are added. This project investigates user expereinces beyond these two relevant aspects of cognition and emotion. We are going into so far unexplored unconscious dimensions.

[For more background information feel free to look at HXresearch]

Sponsor:

Erasmus Mundus Doctorate Programme in Interactive and Cognitive Environments.

Cooperation:
Andreu CATALA and Marta DIAZ (UPC, Barcelona, Spain).

Project team:

Jun Hu (co-supervisor), Leonid IVONIN (PhD), Huang Ming CHANG (PhD)

Presentations:
Rauterberg, M. (2013). User experience beyond cognition and emotion.

References:
Ivonin L., Chang H.M., Chen W., Rauterberg M. (2013). Measuring archetypal experiences with physiological sensors. SPIE newsroom, URL: spie.org/x92143.xml [DOI 10.1117/2.1201301.004669]

Chang HM., Ivonin L., Díaz M., Català A., Chen W., Rauterberg M. (2013). From mythology to psychology: Identifying archetypal symbols in movies. Technoetic Arts: A Journal of Speculative Research, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 99–113.

Ivonin L., Chang H.M., Chen W., Rauterberg M. (2012). Unconscious emotions: Quantifying and logging something we are not aware of. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing,  vol. 17, no. 4, pp. 663-673 [IF=1.133].

Chang H.M., Ivonin L., Diaz M., Catala A., Chen W., Rauterberg M. (2013). Experience the world with archetypal symbols: A new form of aesthetics. In: N. Streitz, C. Stephanidis (eds.): Distributed, Ambient, and Pervasive Interactions DAPI - HCI international (Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 8028, pp. 205–214), Berlin Heidelberg: Springer [CpD=0.499].

Chang H.M., Ivonin L., Diaz M., Catala A., Chen W., Rauterberg M. (2013). What do we feel about archetypes: Self-reports and physiological signals. In: Proceedings of 21st European Signal Processing Conference (September 9-13, 2013, Marrakech, Morocco; paper no. 1569742621).

Chang H.M., Ivonin L., Chen W., Rauterberg M. (2013). Feeling something without knowing why: Measuring emotions toward archetypal content. In: M. Mancas, N. d’ Alessandro, X. Siebert, B. Gosselin, C. Valderrama, T. Dutoit (eds.) Proceedings of Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment - INTETAIN (Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol. 124, pp. 22–31). © Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering: Springer.

PARA: Thinker versus Tinker

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The main objective of this project is to find out what are the main characteristics of the relationship between science ("thinker") and engineering ("tinker"). These two different approaches can be described as different paradigms. Alfred Nobel's last will and testament is clear and concise: "one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery or invention within the field of physics". This distinction in discovery and invention gives us the opportunity to analyse the data of all Nobel Prize laureates in Physics from begin on. In the category 'invention' we subsume 'invention' and 'technical development'. First results show very interesting outcomes.

Sponsor:

Department of Industrial Design, Eindhoven University of Technology, Netherlands.

Cooperation:
Christoph Bartneck. We are in corresponding contact with Claus D. Hillebrand.

Presentations:
Rauterberg, M. (2005). Thinker versus Tinker.

Press Coverage:

The Economist (2010). Daily Chart. [PDF]

References:
Bartneck C., Rauterberg M. (2007). Physics Nobels should favour inventions. Nature, vol. 448, no. 7154, p. 644.

Bartneck C., Rauterberg M. (2007). HCI reality - an unreal tournament?. International Journal on Human-Computer Studies, vol. 65, no. 8, pp. 737-743.

Rauterberg M. (2006). HCI as an engineering discipline: to be or not to be!?. African Journal of Information and Communication Technology, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 163-184.

Rauterberg M. (2003). Human computer interaction research--a paradigm clash?. In: A. Kameas & N. Streitz (eds), Tales of the Disappearing Computer (Proceedings of the Disappearing Computer Conference, 1-4 June Santorini, Greece). Patras, Greece: CTI Press.

Rauterberg M. (2000). How to characterize a research line for user-system interaction. IPO Annual Progress Report, No. 35, pp. 66-86.

ROBOT: Emotional Humanoid Robot Behaviour

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The main objective of this project is to find out what are the main features for designing a humanoid robot which can show emotional behaviour. Based on the state of the art in cognitive science, we are looking for a new kind of architecture to control robot behaviour: from "sensor-control-actuator" to "perception-emotion-action".

Sponsor:
Nirvana Technology Inc, Japan.

Cooperation:
Ben Salem.

References:
Rauterberg M., Salem B., Mortel van de D. (2005). From passive to active forms. In: L. Feijs, S. Kyffin & B. Young (eds.) Design and semantics of form and movements (pp. 110–117), Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V.

Salem B., Rauterberg M. (2005). Power, Death and Love: a trilogy for entertainment. In: F. Kishino et al. (eds.), Entertainment Computing--ICEC 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3711, pp. 279–290.

Rauterberg M. (2004). Enjoyment and entertainment in East and West. In: M. Rauterberg (ed.), Entertainment Computing--ICEC 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 3166, pp. 176–181.
 

SEAT: Smart Technologies for Stress Free Air Travel

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Overall Summary: Passenger comfort is clearly a main factor in user’s acceptance of transportation systems. An individual's reaction to a vehicle environment depends not only on the physical inputs but also on the characteristics of the individual. The findings of a number of passengers’ surveys and comfort related research indicate that there is not a universal optimal setting for comfort related parameters in a plane. Hence individual passengers are always likely to have certain conflicting requirements as perception for comfort is affected by a variety of factors - gender and ethnicity among the most important ones. SEAT promotes a radically new concept where passenger comfort is taken to a new level. The SEAT system will develop smart responsive seats and interior environment with the capability of detecting physiological and psychological changes of passenger’s condition in real time. This in turn will be analyzed and appropriate adjustments such as temperature control, air ventilation, seat parameters etc. put in place. Furthermore each passenger will be able to create its own retrieve with personal entertainment and office characteristics in place. The entire approach is to create an environment that responds to the individual requirements and desires and is not centrally controlled or manually adjusted. The system is based on advanced technologies and systems developed by the partners as breakthrough research developments or other advanced technologies. A prototype of this new system is to be demonstrated to the public at the end of the project.
WP4 "Entertainment and Office" (leader M. Rauterberg). The objectives of WP4 are:
• To develop a novel system that allows interactive entertainment at different levels – individual, group and central.
• To implement physical activities in terms of desired locomotion patterns as part of the entertainment.
• To integrate office characteristics in the entertainment environment to allow effortless switch to different modes of activities.
• To develop a concept for “subliminal entertainment”, where intelligent selection of sound images etc facilitate balanced psychological status.
 

Sponsored by:
Sixth Framework Programme of the European Commission; Priority [4] [Aeronautics and Space]; Proposal/Contract no.: 30958/ AST5-CT-2006-030958.
 

In co-operation with:
Imperial College London (project leader: Prof Ferri M.H.Aliabadi); Acústica y Telecomunicaciones, S.L; Asociación de Investigación de la Industria Textil; Antecuir S.L.; Czech Technical University; Design Hosting Software Ltd.; Eidgenoessische Technische Hochschule Zuerich; Insitituto Tecnologico del Calzado y Conexas; Queen Mary and Westfield College; StarLab; Thales.
 

WP4 Project member:

Hao LIU; Chee Fai TAN.
 

Presentations:
see project website.

References:
see project website.
 

Finished Research Projects at Eindhoven University of Technology (1998-2006)

eC: e-commerce and e-payment

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The e-commerce research group at IPO is adopting a Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) approach to tackle the issues of trust, perceived security, usability and acceptability in e-commerce system design. These research activities are carried out in conjunction with the research initiative entitled "Enabling Electronic Commerce" that has been set up between the University of Tilburg and the Eindhoven University of Technology.

A description of the research conducted by this research group is given as follows: 

Dennis Abrazhevich: user-related factors in online payment systems;

Florian N. Egger: meeting consumer trust requirements in e-commerce system design;

Fulko van Westrenen: modeling risk-taking behaviour.

References:

Dennis Abrazhevich (2004). Electronic Payment Systems: a User-Centered Perspective and Interaction Design. PhD Thesis, Technical University Eindhoven.

LivingLab: a smart home environment for user studies

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Aims:

- To study interaction within a ‘smart home’.

- Focus on elderly as a target group although none of the technologies studied are exclusively for this group.

- Focus on ‘long-term interaction’: how the technologies experimented with, fit the every-day life of users.

- Accrue knowledge on software architectures and user-centered design techniques issues arising.

Project Description:

This project is moving from its initial definition phase to what you could call the set-up phase. The ‘Living Lab’ will provide the facilities for hosting experimental subjects for long periods (e.g., two weeks) and to evaluate their experience with: - Stationery purpose-specific information and communication appliances (see related ‘Tele-visit service and Co-presence’ and ‘Infant Interaction’ projects). - Position and activity sensitive browsing: a wireless in-home service, available everywhere in the house through a single physical device, which interprets the activity of the inhabitant. -'Smart home' technologies for supporting the well being of residence: e.g., air quality control, mobility and nutritional recommender agents.

References:

Markopoulos P., Rauterberg M. (2000). LivingLab: a white paper. IPO Annual Progress Report, No. 35, pp. 53-65.

SMARTEX: Smart  Exhibition Booth

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The main objective of this project is to find out if an adaptive exhibition booth yields a more effective and efficient exhibition. We measure efficiency by the amount of time required to perform an information search task. It is proposed to do so with a comparative, experimental study between a conventional booth (CB) and an adaptive booth (AB). We aim to establish some guidelines to be integrated in the specifications of an exhibition booth. Such guidelines would include both the necessary infrastructure and the required information (both content and media).

Sponsor:
Gielissen BV, Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Cooperation:
Ben Salem.

References:
Salem B., Rauterberg M. (2004). Multiple User Profile Merging (MUPE): Key Challenges for Environment Awareness. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3295, pp. 196–206.

VIP: Visual interaction platform

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Human Computer Interaction through command languages, menu selections and drag and drop techniques, as is prevalent in desktop computers, is far removed from the usual way in which we interact with our environment. Existing interaction devices, moreover, can be very bothersome in situations where several people have to co-operate, together with the computer, on one problem. These problems have stimulated the development of a new generation of computer interfaces in which the virtual world of the computer is better integrated with the real world of the user(s). Such interfaces are referred to as Augmented Reality (AR) or as Natural User Interfaces (NUIs). The expected success of this approach lies in its ability to build on fundamental human skills: namely to interact with real world subjects and objects. NUIs are multimodal(i.e., they integrate different forms of interaction) and therefore allows the users to choose the appropriate and/or individually preferred interaction style for every (inter)action.

The VIP is one instance of such a NUI that is being developed on the BUILD-IT system at IPO. Pattern recognition is the key technology for such next generation user interfaces and therefore determines to a large extent how feasible different interaction modalities (such as spoken language, hand writing, gesture, etc) are. Some of the proposed projects aim at extending pattern recognition capabilities within the existing VIP.

References:
Aliakseyeu D., Champoux B., Martens J-B., Rauterberg M., Subramanian S. (2003). The Visual Interaction Platform. In: M. Rauterberg, M. Menozzi & J. Wesson (eds.), Human-Computer Interaction--INTERACT '03 (pp. 1101-1102). IOS Press.

Aliakseyeu D. (2002). A computer support tool for the early stages of architectural design. PhD Thesis, Technical University Eindhoven.

Aliakseyeu D., Subramanian S., Martens J-B. & Rauterberg M. (2002). Interaction techniques for navigation through and manipulation of 2D and 3D Data. In: Proceedings of Eighth Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments (S. Müller, W. Stürzlinger, Eds.).

Aliakseyeu D., J-B. Martens, S. Subramanian, M. Vroubel and W. Wesselink (2001). Visual Interaction Platform. In: Proceedings of INTERACT 2001, July 2001, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 232-239.

Aliakseyeu D. & Martens J-B. (2001). Physical paper as the user interface for an architectural design tool. In: Proceedings of INTERACT 2001, July 2001, Tokyo, Japan, pp. 680-681.

Subramanian S. & IJsselsteijn W. (2000). Survey and Classification of Spatial Object Manipulation Techniques. In: Proceedings of OZCHI 2000, Interfacing Reality in the New Millennium, December 2000, pp. 330-337.

Finished Research Projects at Swiss Federal  Institute of Technology ETH (1989-1998)

Internet-Study about Internet Addiction

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References:

Egger O. & Rauterberg M. (1996). Internet behaviour and addiction. ETH Technical Report AP-01-96, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich.

AMME: an Automatic Mental Model Evaluator to Analyse User Behaviour Recorded on Logfiles 

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To support the human factors engineer in designing a good user interface of interactive computer programs, a method has been developed to analyse the empirical data of the interactive user behaviour recorded in a logfile. The sequences of keystrokes produced by the user contain a lot of information about the mental model of this user, the individual problem solution strategies for a given task and the hierarchical structure of the task - subtasks relations. The developed tool, AMME, can analyse the keystroke sequences of users and come up automatically with a Petri-Net description of the task dependent mental model of the user. This mental model is the input to a Petri-Net simulator, so the human factor engineer will be able to analyse his interface design without further empirical investigations to detect interactive deadlocks, mis-designed areas, etc. The sequences of decisions and actions produced by users contain much information about the mental model of this user, the individual problem solution strategies for a given task and the underlying decision structure. We distinguish between (1) the logical structure, (2) the sequential goal structure, and (3) the temporal structure. The following results of a experiment of learning are important: Our hypothesis that "learning how to solve a specific task with a given system means that the behavioural complexity decreases and the cognitive complexity increases'' seems to be correct. Furthermore, we can conclude from the empirical results that we must discriminate between the logical structure and the time structure of a task. A new understanding of the relationship between the mental knowledge structure and the decision process for action planning is possible.

References:
Rauterberg, M. (1993) AMME: an Automatic Mental Model Evaluation to analyze user behaviour traced in a finite, discrete state space. Ergonomics 36(11):1369-1380.

Rauterberg, M. (1995). About a framework for information and information processing of learning systems. In E. Falkenberg, W. Hesse & A. Olive (Eds.), Information System Concepts--Towards a consolidation of views (IFIP Working Group 8.1, pp. 54-69). London: Chapman&Hall.

Rauterberg, M. (1996). About faults, errors, and other dangerous things. In C. Ntuen & E. Park (Eds.), Human Interaction with Complex Systems: Conceptual Principles and Design Practice (pp. 291-305). Norwell: Kluwer.

Rauterberg, M. (1996). How to measure cognitive complexity in human-computer interaction. In R. Trappl (Ed.), Cybernetics and Systems '96 (Vol. 2, pp. 815-820). Vienna: Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies.

Rauterberg, M. (1996). Why and what can we learn from human errors. In A. Özok & G. Salvendy (Eds.), Advances in Applied Ergonomics (pp. 827-830). West Lafayette: USA Publishing.

Rauterberg, M. (1996). A Petri net based analyzing and modelling tool kit for logfiles in human-computer interaction. In H. Yoshikawa & E. Hollnagel (Eds.), Proceedings 'Cognitive Systems Engineering in Process Control--CSEPC'96 (pp. 268-275). Kyoto University: Graduate School of Energy Science.

Rauterberg, M. & Aeppli, R. (1995). Learning in man-machine systems: the measurement of behavioural and cognitive complexity. In Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics--SMC'95 (Vol. 5, IEEE Catalog Number 95CH3576-7, pp. 4685-4690). Piscataway: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

Rauterberg, M. & Aeppli, R. (1996). How to measure the learning process in man-machine systems. In A. Özok & G. Salvendy (Eds.), Advances in Applied Ergonomics (pp. 312-315). West Lafayette: USA Publishing.

Rauterberg, M. & Aeppli, R. (1996). How to measure the behavioural and cognitive complexity of learning processes in man-machine systems. In P. Carlson & F. Makedon (Eds.), Proceedings of 'Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia'--ED-MEDIA'96 (pp. 581-586). Charlottesville: AACE.

BUILD-IT: a video-based interaction technique for CAD and other systems

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It is time to go beyond the established approaches in human-computer interaction. After a serious critic of command language, menu selection, and desktop interfaces we discuss the two known approaches to overcome the obstacles and limitations: [immersive] Virtual Reality (VR), and Augmented Reality (AR). Both design strategies are diametrically opposed: VR enriches the virtual world with real humans, while AR augments the real world with intelligent features. Only with the AR design strategy humans are able to behave as much as possible in a natural way: behavior of humans in the real world with other humans and/or real world objects. Our interest in human centred design let us follow this idea. Based on the fundamental constraints of natural way of interacting we derive a set of recommendations for the next generation of user interfaces: the Natural User Interface (NUI). A NUI is implemented with a video-based interaction technique for a planning tool as a front end for CAD systems. Two beamers are used as output devices, one video camera is used for the input. The 3D models of objects can be handled with a wooden brick as an universal interaction handler. The physical position of the brick is determined via the video camera. The implementation is carried with MET++ (see Perspectix) on a Silicon Graphics O2 computer.

Genealogical tree of the "Build-It" family [History PDF]: