Ali Alavi

Tangible tabletops for emergency response: an exploratory study

Effective handling of location-based data is important to emergency response management (ERM). Expert team members co-located around maps typically discuss events while drawing freeform areas or while using physical placeholders representing incidents. Key ERM functions are filtering data, selecting information recipients, searching datasets, drawing time-dependent freeform areas, and zooming in on one region while leaving others unchanged. Under time pressure the mouse and keyboard could be insufficient; intuitive graspable solutions, such as tangible user interfaces (TUIs), may be better suited for ERM. We present CoTracker, a tangible tabletop system with expected potential for ERM teamwork. On an interactive map expert team members can discuss an operational picture using TUIs like bricks, frames, and pens. With the participation of domain experts for cognitive walk-through studies, we examined how generic and specialized TUIs can support ERM-related functions. We present some insights into the design of ERM-focused tangible tabletops.

Accessibility of Brainstorming Sessions for Blind People

Today, research focuses on the accessibility of explicit information for blind users. This gives only partly access to the information flow in brain-storming sessions, since non-verbal communication is not supported. Advances in ICT however allow capturing implicit information like hand gestures as important part of non-verbal communication. Thus, we describe a system that al-lows integrating blind people into a brainstorming session using a mind map.

A Mind Map for Brainstorming Sessions with Blind and Sighted Persons

Accessible mind maps tools are, due to their visual nature hardly available and, if available, they focus on rendering the structure, not considering nonverbal communication elements in ongoing discussions. In this paper, we describe the need for this type of communication as well as a mind map tool that is capable of processing the respective information, coming from a Leap tracking system attached to the interactive surface.

Dual mode IR position and state transfer for tangible tabletops

This paper presents a method for tracking multiple active tangible devices on tabletops. Most tangible devices for tabletops use infrared to send information about their position, orientation, and state. The method we propose can be realized as a tabletop system using a low-cost camera to detect position and a low-cost infrared (IR) receiver to detect the state of each device. Since two different receivers (camera and IR-receiver) are used simultaneously we call the method dual mode. Using this method, it is possible to use devices with a large variation of states simultaneously on a tabletop, thus having more interactive devices on the surface.

Tracking Deictic Gestures over Large Interactive Surfaces

In a collaborative environment, non-verbal communication elements carry important contents. These contents are partially or completely lost in remote collaboration. This paper presents a system to address this issue by tracking pointing gestures, the main non-verbal communication element prevalent in such meetings. The setup employs a touchscreen tabletop computer system for representing the visual content of the meeting, together with three motion trackers for tracking the pointing gestures.

Making Tabletop Interaction Accessible for Blind Users

Tabletop systems and their interaction capabilities are typically a domain for sighted people only. While the content on the tabletop can already be made accessible to blind people, the interaction above the tabletop is still inaccessible. This paper describes our approach towards making the above tabletop interaction accessible to blind people by using LEAP sensors and speech recognition.

Immersive environment for distributed creative collaboration

While videoconferencing has been available for years, tools for distributed creative collaboration such as brainstorming have not yet reached professional use. Unlike regular conferencing, brainstorming relies on information exchange across multiple channels in shared task and communication spaces. If a participant joins a facilitated brainstorming session remotely through his/her mobile device, perceiving these spaces is challenging. By proposing an immersive environment for the remote participant, this tech note addresses how to provide him/her a stronger engagement. Offered as a client application for the remote participants tablet device, it enables him/her to see all channels and select which one to interact with. Our proof-of-concept client allows us to examine how this immersive environment for distributed creative collaboration can provide the remote participant with an increased engagement.

Interference measurement of kinect for xbox one

Microsoft Kinect is widely used for tracking human body in a range of applications. Although Kinect for Xbox One allows for multi-user tracking, it is not possible to use it in large spaces due to its limited range. Hence, using multiple Kinect sensors for large environments seems to be an appropriate solution. Thus, it is important to know if multiple sensors can be used simultaneously for such applications without interfering with each other. In this paper, we investigate the effect of using multiple Kinects on each other by performing multiple measurements in different settings. Our results show that some occasional interference might happen in some specific constellations, when the sensors are facing the same target. Our recommendation is to avoid such constellations, or to perform a simple interference measurement before using multiple sensors in specific settings.

Multistatus Interaktionsgeräte für interaktive Tische

Zusammenfassung In diesem Beitrag werden ein Verfahren und ein Prototyp vorgestellt, die es ermöglichen, viele Interaktionsgeräte gleichzeitig auf einer interaktiven Tischfläche zu betreiben, ohne dass die Reaktionszeit des Systems hierdurch reduziert wird. Darüber hinaus können die Interaktionsgeräte aktiv ihren Zustand über ein mehrstelliges Bitwort an das System signalisieren. Dies erlaubt eine zusätzliche, hochauflösende Eingabe von Information. Abstract This article introduces a procedure and a prototype that allow using multiple interactive devices on an interactive tabletop without reducing the system‘s overall responsiveness. Furthermore, the active interaction devices could transfer their individual state to the system using a multi-digit bit word. This allows entering additional information with a high resolution.