Celso A. S. Santos

PlaySEM: a Platform for Rendering MulSeMedia Compatible with MPEG-V

MulSeMedia is related to the combination of traditional media (e.g. text, image and video) with other objects that aim to stimulate other human senses, such as mechanoreceptors, chemoreceptors and thermoreceptors. Existing solutions embed the control of actuators in the applications, thus limiting their reutilization in other types of applications or different media players. This work presents PlaySEM, a platform that brings a new approach for simulating and rendering sensory effects that operates independently of any Media Player, and that is compatible with the MPEG-V standard, while taking into account reutilization requirement. Regarding this architecture conjectures are tested focusing on the decoupled operation of the renderer.

An Event Driven Approach for Integrating Multi-sensory Effects to Interactive Environments

The paper presents an event driven approach for building interactive environments with sensory effects (such as RGB color light, wind and vibration) described through MPEGV standard. The most important differences of this work from previous ones are: (1) it divides the design process into well defined stages, showing the behavior of the system under a new perspective and their interactions, (2) it follows an event driven paradigm instead of a timeline one to send commands to sensory devices and (3) it decouples rendering of MPEG-V effects from the presentation software component. The method to validate the proposed approach was a case study, which has integrated multiples sensory effects to an interactive environment based on gesture recognizing.

Touch the air: an event-driven framework for interactive environments

Since the advent of Kinect, there has been an outbreak of applications that go beyond mouse and keyboard interfaces. Applications developers aim to enrich and re-imagine these interfaces using gesture and voice commands recognition for controlling some virtual and real world objects using a natural interaction mechanism. Aligned to this, there are problems to set a standard for these interfaces, plus a huge effort in performing simple tasks such as connecting sensors, processing data, recognizing gestures and running actions in real or virtual world. This paper proposes an extendable event-driven framework that improves the life cycle of designing and building interactive environments, making it possible to interact with both real and virtual environments.

Second screen event flow synchronization

Interactivity on TV has evolved. First, it was possible just to change volume and channels manually, and then the remote control was created turning easier the interaction with TV. Soon TV programs started to interact with the users, through telephone calls, SMS and others. With the evolution of broadcasters and television technologies it was possible to send data within audio and video TV streams, turning feasible running interactive applications to enhance TV viewers experience with extra content. Now we see the use of new technologies, like audio controls, motion sense and second screen, to improve interaction. This work describes techniques used to synchronize second screen applications with main content presented on TV, and proposes an alternative solution based on multimedia synchronization. The Event Flow Synchronization (EFS), based on the Flow Synchronization Protocol, is presented, describing its main characteristics and how it can be used to provide second screen applications. To verify EFS for second screen concepts, the Sidekick platform is presented, detailing its components and functionalities. Lastly, applications developed with Sidekick are presented.

A Model-driven Approach for Integration of Interactive Applications and Web Services: A Case Study in Interactive Digital TV Platform

This work proposed a model-driven development approach related to interactive multimedia applications and Web services integration. It is based on extension of an existing modeling language, which integrates modeling concepts for interactive applications and adds support for Web Services. Three Interactive Digital TV applications were modeled and developed. As we show, the evaluation of the approach brought benefits not supported by related works, like requirements structuring and reducing amount of work needed to finalize the code generated.

StoryToCode: a new model for specification of convergent interactive digital TV applications

This paper presents a model, called the StoryToCode, which allows designing iTV programs focusing on using software components. First, StoryToCode allows transforming a storyboard into an abstract description of an element set. After this, this model transforms these elements into a specific programming language source code. In StoryToCode a software component is treated as a special element that can be reused in other contexts (web, mobile, and so on). StoryToCode is based on Model Driven Architecture (MDA) and allows designing and implementing applications, with context free, considering iTV program specific characteristics.

OurMap: Representing Crowdsourced Annotations on Geospatial Coordinates as Linked Open Data

There is an increasing number of initiatives using Web-based mapping systems that rely on crowdsourcing as a collaborative problem-solving and data production model. In these initiatives, large groups of users can collaboratively annotate spatial things on a map. Ideally, these crowdsourcing initiatives should produce Linked Open Data LOD to enable people/systems to share structured data and, consequently, improve distributed problem-solving on the Web. This paper presents an approach for producing LOD from crowdsourced annotations on Web-based mapping systems. In this approach, annotations are represented using the Open Annotation data model and they have as target a geospatial coordinate referenced using the geo URI. Moreover, we combine crowdsourced map annotations with semantic Web technologies to enrich maps with semantic information. To demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we present the OurMap system, which performs the proposed approach allowing the representation of open and semantic annotations associated with geospatial coordinates independently of the Web map interface adopted.

Animated Words Clouds to View and Extract Knowledge from Textual Information

The presentation of information is a very important part of the comprehension of the whole. Therefore, the chosen visualization technique should be compatible with the content to be presented. An easy and fast visualization of the subjects developed by a research group, during certain periods, requires a dynamic visualization technique such as the Animated Word Cloud. With this technique, we were able to use the titles of bibliographic publications of researchers to present, in a clear and straightforward manner, information that is not easily evident just by reading its title. The synchronization of the videos generated from the Animated Word Clouds allows a deeper analysis, a quick and intuitive observation, and the perception of information presented simultaneously.

Verifying Hypermedia Applications by Using an MDE Approach

Authoring tools for editing hypermedia documents should be able to describe temporal and spatial relationships among objects, and user interactions as well. These tools can also support modifications in the document structure during the exhibition time. In all these situations, hypermedia document correctness should be guaranteed. In this paper, we describe an approach supporting the formal verification of documents in the Nested Context Language (NCL) and Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language (SMIL) standards. Using usual authoring tools, NCL and SMIL models are generated and, though an MDE design environment, transformed into formal verification models to be used following a method proposed in this paper and supported by an appropriate tool. A designer-oriented interface allows an easy and understandable description of properties to be checked and of required observers for more complex properties. The results of the verification are also presented in a comprehensive way for designers (as counterexamples) or executed step-by-step in a common displaying tool. Our approach allows designers to deal with the validation of their documents, built in a rigorous and consistent way, without prior knowledge of verification models and tools.

Systematic Review of Multiple Contents Synchronization in Interactive Television Scenario

Context. Interactive TV has not reached yet its full potential. How to make the use of interactivity in television content viable and attractive is something in evolution that can be seen with the popularization of new approaches as the use of second screen as interactive platform. Objective. This study aims at surveying existing research on Multiple Contents TV Synchronization in order to synthesize their results, classify works with common points, and identify needs for future research. Method. This paper reports the results of a systematic literature review and mapping study on TV Multiple Contents Synchronization published until middle 2013. As result, a set of 68 papers was generated and analyzed considering general information such as sources and time of publication; covered research topics; and synchronization aspects such as methods, channels, and precision. Results. Based on the obtained data, the paper provides a high level overview of the analyzed works; a detailed exploration of each used and proposed technique and its applications; and a discussion and proposal of a scenario overview and classification scheme based on the extracted data.