Adérito Marcos

WAVE: Sound and music in an immersive environment

This paper presents WAVE-a Virtual Audio Environment, which embraces the implementation of an immersive musical instrument model that uses three-dimensional (3D) sound techniques combined with visualisation and virtual reality technologies. This prototype environment aims to extend the idea of a musical instrument into a new musical/audio system, incorporating traditional musical concepts side by side with actual music concepts, in order to progress one step further in the music/sound composing and performing approaches. The architecture of the system is based on low-cost hardware and open source software with affordable professional audio equipment to maintain an adequate sound quality. Also several applications of this virtual environment are discussed in the paper, including the way to satisfy at the same time composers, performers, music/audio students or even simple occasional users.

Instantiating the creation process in digital art for serious games design

Abstract The creation process in digital art relies often on collaborations between an artist (or group of artists) and a multidisciplinary team. This collaboration implies a multidisciplinary work involving art, science, technology, design, psychology, etc. that come together by sharing a common communicational and informational space. In this essay we bring into discussion how the creation process cycle in digital art could be instantiated and applied for the development of serious games through end-user purposes of both creative authors: the digital artists and the serious games developers. We realise a comprehensive analysis of this creation process in digital art, specially the aesthetic musing activity, while devising how it could be helpful to introduce new engaging stimulus in the creative process of serious games.

An Immersive Musical Instrument Prototype

This article describes a prototype immersive musical instrument that expands the concepts of traditional musical elements and allows the integration of a spatial dimension using 3D music and sound objects into the musical environment by employing physical, visual, and sound immersion. From the prototypes evaluation results, we conclude that immersive musical instruments naturally give users a way to perform, compose, or improvise music (in real time) with a high degree of control.

The Creation Process in Digital Art

The process behind the act of the art creation or the creation process has been the subject of much debate and research during the last fifty years at least, even thinking art and beauty has been a subject of analysis already by the ancient Greeks such were Plato or Aristotle. Even though intuitively it is a simple phenomenon, creativity or the human ability to generate innovation (new ideas, concepts, etc.) is in fact quite complex. It has been studied from the perspectives of behavioral and social psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, philosophy, history, design research, digital art, and computational aesthetics, among others. In spite of many years of discussion and research there is no single, authoritative perspective or definition of creativity, i.e., there is no standardized measurement technique. Regarding the development process that supports the intellectual act of creation it is usually described as a procedure where the artist experiments the medium, explores it with one or more techniques, changing shapes, forms, appearances, where beyond time and space, he/she seeks his/her way out to a clearing, i.e., envisages a path from intention to realization. Duchamp in his lecture “The Creative Act” states the artist is never alone with his/her artwork; there is always the spectator that later on will react critically to the work of art. If the artist succeeds in transmitting his/her intentions in terms of a message, emotion or feeling to the spectator then a form of aesthetic osmosis actually takes place through the inert matter (the medium) that enabled this communication or interaction phenomenon to occur. The role of the spectator may become gradually more active by interacting with the artwork itself possibly changing or becoming a part of it [2][4].

Neighboring-based Linear System for Dynamic Meshes

www.eg.org diglib.eg.org Abstract A linear system is a fundamental building block for several mesh-based computer graphics applications such as simulation, shape deformation, virtual surgery, and fluid/smoke animation, among others. Nevertheless, such a system is most of the times seen as a black box and algorithms do not deal with its optimization. Depending on the number of unknowns, the linear system is often considered as an obstacle for real time application and as a building block for offline computations. We present in this paper, a neighboring-based methodology for representing a linear system. This new representation enables a compact storage of the set of equation, flexibility for ordering the unknowns and a rapid iterative solution, by means of an optimized matrix-vector multiplication. In addition, this representation facilitates the modification of part of the linear system without affecting its unchanged part and avoiding the complete rebuild of the system. This specially benefits applications dealing with dynamic meshes, where the geometry, the topology or both are constantly changed. We present the capabilities of our methodology in models with different sizes and for different operations, highlighting the dynamic characteristic of the mesh. We believe that several applications in computer graphics could benefit from our methodology, in order to improve their convergence and their performance, reducing the number of iterations and the computation time.

A Tecnologia Multimédia no Registo do Património Arquitectónico

In recent years the fast growing adoption of the Internet as a tool to link companies for business purposes has appeared to be one of the major forces able to shape competition and the whole economy in 21st century. More specifically, the agreements between buying firms and supplying firms seem to head towards new scenarios, with possible consequences with regard to the time span of the relationship and the amount of information exchanged between business partners. This paper aims to present some research issues concerned with the adoption of interorganizational information systems and with the innovative relations allowed by the Internet as enabling infrastructure, and to point out the main theoretical hypothesis about buyer-suppliers relationships which emerge from the literature in the field. As a result, a definite set of statements will be provided. Furthermore, by considering the case of two of the leading food retailing companies in Britain, some web-based information systems will be discussed, in order to understand in which terms the speculative findings of the literature apply in the given cases.Na sociedade actual, o conhecimento existente nas empresas e uma forte arma competitiva quando gerido adequadamente. Os factores determinantes da sobrevivencia de uma grande parte das organizacoes reflectem-se na forma como a organizacao aprende e responde a mudanca atraves da partilha, distribuicao e criacao de conhecimento organizacional. O termo que vem sendo usado para referir a criacao, partilha e distribuicao de conhecimento e “gestao de conhecimento”.Neste artigo sao apresentados os resultados de um estudo exploratorio que pretende caracterizar o estado da gestao de conhecimento em Portugal. Pretendeu-se medir a sensibilidade das organizacoes para a necessidade e vantagens da gestao de conhecimento, bem como identificar projectos desenvolvidos ou em curso, ferramentas utilizadas e o conhecimento manuseado.O artigo comeca com uma breve contextualizacao historica e descricao da situacao actual. Em seguida introduz as principais alteracoes que o desenvolvimento tecnologico vem trazer as cadeias de valor das organizacoes. A abordagem seguinte, relativa a aprendizagem de Sistemas de Informacao (SI), debate a insuficiencia do factor tecnologico para estas mudancas, se nao houver, por parte das organizacoes, um esforco sistematico de tirar o maximo partido desse factor, apostando na valorizacao dos seus profissionais e, em particular, na aprendizagem dos SI na perspectiva da criacao de novo conhecimento organizacional nesta area. Ainda antes da apresentacao do modelo, e feita uma descricao mais exaustiva dos principais conceitos desta area do conhecimento organizacional. Finalmente e apresentado o modelo que propomos para ser utilizado na caracterizacao da aprendizagem dos SI.O objectivo desta comunicacao consiste em fazer uma abordagem generica aos sistemas de informacao e a tecnologia de suporte no âmbito da gestao das organizacoes ligadas a Cadeia de Valor do Turismo e Hotelaria. Pretende-se ainda reflectir sobre as conclusoes de um estudo efectuado pelos autores a utilizacao de Sistemas do tipo ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) nas unidades hoteleirasNos ultimos anos, congregaram-se alguns factores, pressionando os decisores da Saude para mudancas de fundo nas suas politicas: a dificuldade do controlo orcamental, o aumento do grau de exigencia dos utentes, o envelhecimento da populacao e a necessidade de comparacao e disseminacao de boas praticas. Estas mudancas de fundo implicam a existencia de sistemas de Qualidade, que nao podem existir sem recolha e tratamento de grandes volumes de dados. Os Sistemas de Suporte a Decisao tem sido, com sucesso, aplicados noutros dominios para resolver este problema. O autor propoe o uso de sistemas ja implementados em Portugal como base de trabalho para a criacao de uma Base de Dados Nacional de Indicadores.

A Prototype for Cartographic Human Body Analysis

A cartographic-oriented model uses algebraic map operations to perform spatial analysis of medical data relative to the human body. A prototype system uses 3D visualization techniques to deliver analysis results. A prototype implementation suggests the model might provide the basis for a medical application tool that introduces new information insight.

Developing applications for the Portuguese Shoe Industry

In this paper a set of specific applications under development for the Portuguese Shoe Industry are presented. The applications include CAD/CAM, the visualisation of graphical information (related to shoe and shoe components models) and the management of production and prototyping information. Besides describing some of the R&D details of the applications developed by the authors, this paper aims to present a case study of a successful technological application. It is part of a more general process for the introduction, in this industrial sector, of new production, management and administrative working philosophies, which are based on the centralisation of information and integrated global solutions.

Virtual Tutor: A Case of Study in University Aberta

The project VIRTUAL TUTORING – the virtual tutor as learning mediating artifact in online university education, is an ongoing project, with the main goal of analyzing the pedagogic impact of an anthropomorphic user interface on a typical distance learning environment targeted to support online higher education. It implies the development of 3D rigged avatars that should perform typical online tutor activities. The virtual tutor should mimic a human tutor, being a kind of emphatic interface between the student and the course module in Moodle. But more than this, the virtual tutor should give support in the learning process of the student, working as much as a guide inside the contents offered by the e-learning course. This paper gives an overview of the project present development status.

Topic Maps na Visualização de Informação no Ensino e Treino

In recent years the fast growing adoption of the Internet as a tool to link companies for business purposes has appeared to be one of the major forces able to shape competition and the whole economy in 21st century. More specifically, the agreements between buying firms and supplying firms seem to head towards new scenarios, with possible consequences with regard to the time span of the relationship and the amount of information exchanged between business partners. This paper aims to present some research issues concerned with the adoption of interorganizational information systems and with the innovative relations allowed by the Internet as enabling infrastructure, and to point out the main theoretical hypothesis about buyer-suppliers relationships which emerge from the literature in the field. As a result, a definite set of statements will be provided. Furthermore, by considering the case of two of the leading food retailing companies in Britain, some web-based information systems will be discussed, in order to understand in which terms the speculative findings of the literature apply in the given cases.Na sociedade actual, o conhecimento existente nas empresas e uma forte arma competitiva quando gerido adequadamente. Os factores determinantes da sobrevivencia de uma grande parte das organizacoes reflectem-se na forma como a organizacao aprende e responde a mudanca atraves da partilha, distribuicao e criacao de conhecimento organizacional. O termo que vem sendo usado para referir a criacao, partilha e distribuicao de conhecimento e “gestao de conhecimento”.Neste artigo sao apresentados os resultados de um estudo exploratorio que pretende caracterizar o estado da gestao de conhecimento em Portugal. Pretendeu-se medir a sensibilidade das organizacoes para a necessidade e vantagens da gestao de conhecimento, bem como identificar projectos desenvolvidos ou em curso, ferramentas utilizadas e o conhecimento manuseado.O artigo comeca com uma breve contextualizacao historica e descricao da situacao actual. Em seguida introduz as principais alteracoes que o desenvolvimento tecnologico vem trazer as cadeias de valor das organizacoes. A abordagem seguinte, relativa a aprendizagem de Sistemas de Informacao (SI), debate a insuficiencia do factor tecnologico para estas mudancas, se nao houver, por parte das organizacoes, um esforco sistematico de tirar o maximo partido desse factor, apostando na valorizacao dos seus profissionais e, em particular, na aprendizagem dos SI na perspectiva da criacao de novo conhecimento organizacional nesta area. Ainda antes da apresentacao do modelo, e feita uma descricao mais exaustiva dos principais conceitos desta area do conhecimento organizacional. Finalmente e apresentado o modelo que propomos para ser utilizado na caracterizacao da aprendizagem dos SI.O objectivo desta comunicacao consiste em fazer uma abordagem generica aos sistemas de informacao e a tecnologia de suporte no âmbito da gestao das organizacoes ligadas a Cadeia de Valor do Turismo e Hotelaria. Pretende-se ainda reflectir sobre as conclusoes de um estudo efectuado pelos autores a utilizacao de Sistemas do tipo ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) nas unidades hoteleirasNos ultimos anos, congregaram-se alguns factores, pressionando os decisores da Saude para mudancas de fundo nas suas politicas: a dificuldade do controlo orcamental, o aumento do grau de exigencia dos utentes, o envelhecimento da populacao e a necessidade de comparacao e disseminacao de boas praticas. Estas mudancas de fundo implicam a existencia de sistemas de Qualidade, que nao podem existir sem recolha e tratamento de grandes volumes de dados. Os Sistemas de Suporte a Decisao tem sido, com sucesso, aplicados noutros dominios para resolver este problema. O autor propoe o uso de sistemas ja implementados em Portugal como base de trabalho para a criacao de uma Base de Dados Nacional de Indicadores.