Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

GOOD ROUTE is a European project developing a cooperative system for routing, monitoring, re-routing, enforcement and driver support of dangerous goods vehicles, based upon dynamic, real time data, in order to minimise the Societal Risks related to their movements, whereas still generating the most cost efficient solution for all actors involved in their logistic chain. In this paper the theoretical background for the Human-Machine Interface of the GOOD ROUTE system is discussed, different actors are characterised and their user needs are described. Basic functionalities and elements as well as the preliminary guidelines that endorse the GOOD ROUTE system approach are presented.

A mobile market shows that the global LBS (Location-Based Service) market is noticeable and continues to grow rapidly. With the coming of mobile applications, the requirement of the small screen interface (SSI) is even more reinforced because of the need for more functions and contents on the devices. This research explore an empirical study of user access to PoI’s (Point of Interest) information of the map view display (MVD) and list view display (LVD) meeting the user’s needs base on the principle of adaptive and intuitive visualization on Smartphone. Further, the prototype of LBS on smartphone was emulated by VB.Net program, which interfaces are evaluated through objective measurement and subjective investigation. Our study’s results appear cognition of symbols that affects operating performance, so the suggestion is towards using LVD more effectively than MVD on LBS applications. The findings of the study will be helpful to enrich functionality and customization of the LBS appearance on smartphone.

This paper presents the Augmented Ambient project that aims to construct a highly interactive mobility scenario based on augmented reality applications running on heterogeneous multimedia devices. Mobility is made available through ambient networks, which are dynamic computer networks. A case study has been performed about a virtual museum, where users join a service network that includes art pieces visualization, broadcast interview, chat, and remote live auctions. These services are implemented in Desktop, Pocket PC and Symbian OS platforms. Each one has its own limitations related to processing power and content exhibition, which are considered during media exchange. The application development process for each supported platform is detailed in the text that presents also some libraries built to simplify and speed up the development, namely OgreAR, OGRE port for Pocket PC and CIDA, beyond the ambient networks related software infrastructure.

Although much effort is spent in developing navigation systems for pedestrians, many users with special needs are mostly excluded due to a lack of appropriate geographical data such as landmarks, waypoints, or obstacles. Such data is necessary for computing suitable routes which might differ from being the shortest or fastest one. In this paper, the concept of multimodal annotation of geographical data for personalized navigation is described. Direct input by the user is combined with data derived from the observation of the user’s LOM-Modality (Location, Orientation, and Movement) to annotate geographical data. Based on this data and data derived from other users of the same user group, suitable routes even in unknown territory can be calculated.

In this paper, we propose a device that indicates the direction of an obstacle that is encroaching into the path of a visually impaired person who is walking. Our proposed system, which would resemble a pair of eyeglasses, first detects an obstacle and then indicates its direction and distance to the wearer through puff of air to the forehead. This paper describes the preliminary testing for presenting distance information.

In this paper, we propose intuitive motion-based interfaces for map navigation on mobile devices with built-in cameras. The interfaces are based on the visual detection of the devices self-motion. This gives people the experience of navigating maps with a virtual looking glass. We conducted a user study to evaluate the accuracy, sensitivity and responsiveness of our proposed system. Results show that users appreciate our motion-based user interface and find it more intuitive than traditional key-based controls, even though there is a learning curve.

As the population profile in most part of the world is more and more weighted towards older people, the incidence of dementia will continue to increase. Dementia is marked by a general cognitive decline, and in particular the impairment of working (short-term) memory. Finding ways to engage people with dementia in stimulating but safe activities which they can do without the help of a carer would be beneficial both to them and to their caregivers. We are developing an interactive entertainment system designed to be used alone by a person with dementia without caregiver assistance. We have piloted a number of interactive virtual environments and activities both with people with dementia and professionals in the field of dementia care. We report the results of this pilot work and consider the further questions to be addressed in developing an engaging, multimedia activity for people with dementia to use independently.

By using VR, industrial designs and architectural studies can be evaluated in early stages of development. In order to judge visual appearances and surface materials, a high visual quality is crucial. Today’s programmable graphics hardware allows rendering of photorealistic effects in real-time. Basically, this functionality can be ex-ploited in VR, but the amount of work for model creation must be by orders of magnitudes lower than what’s acceptable for computer games. Thus, a tool is needed which allows efficient preparation of design models from the digital process chain for high-fidelity VR models and which is easy to use for people who are familiar with modeling or CAD software. In this article, we describe the software tool VRfx. which addresses this task.

This paper presents the study of evaluating VR display types on Brain Computer Interface (BCI) performance. In this study, a configurable virtual reality BCI system was used for users to control the virtual environment to execute the ubiquitous computing home facilities. The study evaluated various VR display types: 2D arrow cue, 3D virtual reality, 3D fully immersive CAVE system, and 3D CAVE cue. The task involved users to imagine left or right arm movements for rotating the direction in the virtual environment and move forward by using a direction locking device. The result shows that there was no significant improvement on BCI classification rate even by enhancing the immersion of VR displays. Instead, the level of simulator sickness was increased. This result indicates a new improved display type is needed for the ubiquitous computing environment control BCI system.

In real life, most of the tasks we perform throughout the day are first person tasks. Shouldn’t these same tasks be realized from a first person point of view in virtual reality? This paper presents a first person Projection-based Visuo-Haptic Environment, and virtual prototyping and data exploration applications taking advantage of the first person visuo-haptic features of this configuration.