GUI The figure illustrates the current GUI paradigm in which generic input devices allow users to remotely interact with digital information. Using the metaphor of a seashore that separates the sea of bits from the land of atoms, the digital information is illustrated at the bottom of the water, and the mouse and screen are above sea level in the physical domain. Users interact with the remote controls, and ultimately experience an intangible, external representation of digital information (display pixels and sound).
TUI Tangible User Interface aims at a different direction from GUI by using tangible representations of information that also serve as the direct control mechanisms of the digital information. By representing information in both tangible and intangible forms, users can more directly control the underlying digital representation using their hands.This Paper discusses the method of camera based fiducial tracking based on new methods, unique to the topological design of the fiducial structure.
Matrix-Pattern and Pattern-Matching Approach
Fiducial Recognition
The first one is the black square in the center, which contains one white dot. This is used to obtain the rough angle of the fiducial in the video input image, using the vector from center of the minimum bounding box of the black square to the white circle. The black and white regions are surrounding this center black square. Each dot in those regions encodes a bit, 0 for a black dot and 1 for a white dot. These bits are sorted in a clockwise order, starting from the rough angle obtained from the center circle, to decode the ID of thefiducial. Decoding these examples in Figure 5 results in their unique IDs, 48115, 64407, 40879, from left to right. Notice all these fiducials has the same topological structure. In case of 16bit fiducial, there are only 17 different topological structures, since the number of black or white bit-encoding nodes can vary only between 0-16.
The average time cost measured of 1000 frames with 12 markers in input images with capture in 640x480 resolution. ReacTIVision also has several features to increase the robustness like frame equalizer, the use of information from the previous frame and so on. Taking these features into the evaluation can increase the time cost. To compare these two different systems, we excluded the time cost for reacTIVision features that our system has not implemented yet.
This paper helps the reader further understand how fiducial tracking works and incorporate the best methods in use to optimize the speed and efficiency of fiducial tracking.
p201-jacob: Not really related to what we are doing but would be an interesting read for Novel anyway. It deals with 3 case studies related to Reality-Based Interaction (RBI), Body & Environment awareness and Naïve Physics, and explains the RBI Themes and Tradeoffs for each case.
p781-apted: Not related to our project but is a pretty interesting read. It describes the design of SharePic – a multiuser, multi-touch, gestural, collaborative digital photograph sharing application for a tabletop, specifically designed for the elderly.
p369-jorda: this seems like it could have been a promising document as it starts off with an abstract that explains that four approaches will be explored one of them being “the Reactable: a musical tabletop, and its companion fiducial tracking system reacTIVision” – unfortunately, this paper was only talking about a studio that was going to be held and acted only as a program for the studio in question. It also provides links to a website http://tangible.media.mit.edu/projects.php which is apparently “closed for repair”.
Virtual Farm: a 3D farm game for Kindergarten children. Although it is not exactly what we are working on, there some similar elements as well as some design considerations that we can adopt from it. Below are a few points:
Quote: MarÃa Montessori: “Children build their mental image of the world, through the action and motor responses; and, with physical handling, they become conscious of reality”.
What i'm imagining is a 2 player 'Versus Mode'.
This will make the game more engaging and challenging whilst being educational!
Are Tangibles More Fun? Comparing Children's Enjoyment and Engagement Using Physical, Graphical and Tangible User Interfaces - (Xie - p191)
Enjoyment and Engagement
"Enjoyment and engagement are integral and prerequisite aspects of children’s playful learning experiences. They are the two primary dependent variables evaluated in this research study. The conceptual definitions of enjoyment and engagement set the scope and meaning of the terms within this research study. Each is a complex construct which may be derived from physical, social and cognitive theories."
Collaboration
"Another variable of interest related to enjoyment and engagement is collaboration. Children communicate and learn through social interaction and imitating one another. In this way they acquire new knowledge and hone their ability to collaborate with others. Inkpen et al. found that children exhibit a significantly higher level of engagement and activity when working alongside each other [12]. Sluis et al. suggest that a collaborative environment is more likely to elicit increased intrinsic motivation [30]. Working together in small groups is shown to increase children’s enjoyment, engagement and motivation [12,29]. Based on the assumption that a collaborative, co-located condition is ecologically valid and would enhance children’s enjoyment and engagement for all interface styles, a paired collaboration situation was chosen for our study design as detailed below."
This Journal basically talks about a jigsaw puzzle game on different types of User Interfaces (Traditional User Interface, Graphical User Interface, Tangible User Interface).
Below are the results:
Results of Children Preference:
"Children commented that the puzzle was challenging but that they liked it because they could finish it within the allocated length of time. Some children commented that they were concerned about how much time they had already spent and how much time they still left for solving the puzzle in the progress of play. This finding is in line with guidelines proposed by Salen and Zimmerman [27], which state that an enjoyable game balances challenge against possibility of winning. It is possible that two thirds of the pairs rated all puzzles as enjoyable because the puzzles contained right balance between challenge and achievability regardless of interface style. Children also commented that they liked getting help during play from either the reference pictures or their partner (collaboration). This result was consistent with our observations on their collaborations and use of the reference picture.
Some children indicated that they did not like it when the picture underlying the puzzle was turned off (perhaps by their partner). A few children mentioned that they disliked feeling pressured due to the time limitation. This comment was more frequent from the pairs in the GUI condition. Some children complained that there were too many pieces in GUI puzzles (which had fewer pieces than the TUI or PUI puzzles)".
Design Implications:
Based on the findings of this study we see several implications for design of tangibles for children.
P6- Vandenhoven: Tangible Play (4/5)
· JJournal deals with tangible games, ideal for our scenario.
· “They [people] like game play for a variety of reasons: as a pastime, as a personal challenge, to build skills, to interact with others, or simply for fun” Quote from text, may be useful as an impact line at bottom of slide.
· Journal also specifies that some gamers prefer board games over newer games to due socialisation aspect: I do not fully agree with this, as certain modern games allow for socialising (via online play, two player mode, or multiple input such as Reactable)
· Vandenhoven in fact went on to mention the conceot of sitting around a table to play digital games (via embedded touch displays)
· The ‘Tangible Play’ workshop “brings together researchers and practitioners”, and deals with topics such as marketability of tangible games.
· Tangible Play is a one day workshop, in which a “guest speaker from Philips Research ... will provide an industry perspective on tabletop game design.”
P61- Nielsen: Out of the Box (1/5)
Deals with children’s physical toy ’marketing’ by bringing them to life at a toy store, via 3D game engine and reacTIVision game table.
· LEGO toys are designed using a 3D program. That same design tool is eventually used to create the physical moulds.
· To get point 1 to work, a reacTIVision table was constructed, with a camera located underneath the Perspex glass table, and a monitor mounted on a nearby wall.
Toy boxes all carried fiducials underneath, which when placed on the reacTIVision table; prompt the system to show a 3D model of the toys on the screen.
It is also good to point out that when they where constructing the table, they had their target audience (6-16 year old children) in mind, designing the table’s height accordingly.
· Similar reacTIVision tables include:
o “Tangible Programming exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science”
o “Battleboard 3D [which] is a mixed-reality chess-like board game”
o Storysurfer which is a “combined surface (floor: top-projected, table: back-projected) installation, which allows children to browse and select books in a library”
· The majority of this paper deals with how the authors constructed their toy store table, where they positioned it, and contains a study of who made use of it during the span of the study (gender and age group studies). As interesting as this study was, most of the data is inapplicable to our group’s scenario.
P63-Van Dam: Post-WIMP User Interfaces (4/5)
· Four styles of interface throughout time:
o 1950s-1960s: Batch processing (Punch Card Input, Line-Printer Output): No user interface due to lack of interaction with system.
o 1960s-1980s: Basic Command Line Interfaces, via “alphanumeric displays”
o 1970s: Launch of “Raster graphics-based networked workstations”, along with “point-and-click WIMP GUIs”
o 1990s onwards: Post-WIMP user Interfaces
· Van Dam considers post-WIMP to be interfaces which do not make use of “menus, forms, or toolbars, but rely on ... gesture and speech recognition”
· “the most important predictor of an application’s success was its ease of use (how “user-friendly” it is), both for novices and experienced users” Quote from text, may be useful as an impact line.
· Mentions concept of butler style interface, where workstation knows what user requires without direct user input (can be done via facial expression/hand gestures)
· Drawbacks of WIMP GUIs
o As application complexity increases, it becomes harder to learn the interface, due to an increased number of widgets and features.
o Users spend too much time “manipulating the interface” to get to the point where they wish to get to (due to point-and-click methodology)
o Mouse and keyboard input not available to all users (either because they don’t find controlling a mouse to be natural, or due to injury related issues/disability.)
o “WIMP Interfaces do not take advantage of speech, hearing and touch”
· The Future: “Hugely powerful ubiquitous computers in many different form factors”
o “Wearable Computers” (6th Sense)
o “Whiteboard sized or wall sized displays” (already in existence)
o “Lightweight, minimally intrusive head-mounted displays” (Virtual/Augmented Reality)
o Future display resolutions will be far better then the current 70-100dpi, which Van Dam considers inadequate.
P287-Wang: StitchRV: Multi-Camera Fiducial Tracking (5/5)
· StitchRV: fiducial and touch-tracking engine based on reacTIVision.
· Combines video input from multiple cameras at the same time
· Single camera setups are limited to the field of view of their single camera. Adding more cameras to the rig increases the field size, and reduces the chance of obstructions.
· Hardware: Currently designed to work with a Playstation Eye which delivers video via USB at 60frames per second. (640x480 resolution)
· Advantages of StitchRV:
o Requires little equipment
o Enables object-tracking
o Multiple cameras allow for higher resolution fiducial and touch tracking
o Through point 3, allows fiducials to be smaller (allowing for a more densely packed surface)
o Multiple cameras makes it possible to have less distance between cameras and surface (as surface range not limited by a single camera’s line of sight)...
· Current Limitations:
o Only supports two camera feeds (at the moment)
o Source Code customization (openFrameworks / C++) may be intimidating to some researchers
o Currently not a viable solution for researchers with no programming experience
o Limited by processing power
· Future work includes User Friendly Interface (to replace requirement for source code editing)
