Cuixia Ma

EasyToy: Plush Toy Design Using Editable Sketching Curves

EasyToy is an industrial plush toy design system for novices. Editable sketching curves combine the advantages of free-form strokes and the controllability of B-spline curves. Users can continuously edit each curve to refine designs. EasyToy provides a small set of simple tools with which users can easily construct sophisticated toy models comparable to those that professional systems produce.EasyToy is an industrial plush toy design system for novices. Editable sketching curves combine the advantages of free-form strokes and the controllability of B-spline curves. Users can continuously edit each curve to refine designs. EasyToy provides a small set of simple tools with which users can easily construct sophisticated toy models comparable to those that professional systems produce.

KnitSketch: A Sketch Pad for Conceptual Design of 2D Garment Patterns

In this paper, we present a new sketch-based system - KnitSketch, to improve the efficiency of process planning for knitting garments at an early design stage. The KnitSketch system utilizes sketching interface with the pen-paper metaphor and users only need to draw outlines of different parts of the garment. Based on sketching understanding, the system automatically makes reasonable geometric inferences about the process-planning data of the garment. The system is designed for nonprofessional users and can design diverse garment styles by freehand drawings. The contributions of this work include contextual extraction of reusable data from sketches, a MDG structure for sketch beautification, and an integrated system with natural expression and effective communication that reduces the cognitive load of human beings. User experience shows that the proposed system helps designers focus on the task instead of the designing tools, and thus improves the efficiency and productivity of human beings.

Scanning secondary-electron microscopy on ferroelectric domains and domain walls in YMnO3

Ferroelectric domain structures in YMnO3 single crystals on the hexagonal polar surface have been investigated by scanning electron microscopy in secondary electron emission mode. The experimental results demonstrate that the domain, as well as domain walls, can be clearly revealed under the operation voltages ranging from 0.6 to 3 kV. Evolution of domain contrasts arising from electron-beam irradiation can be mainly explained by the pyroelectric effect and related charging process. A rich variety of microstructure features of ferroelectric domains can be clearly revealed in YMnO3 by this high-resolution technique.

Suppression of the current leakage in charge ordered Lu2Fe2Fe1−xMnxO7 (0<x≤0.86)

The ferroelectricity, magnetic properties, and charge-ordering modulations in the layered Lu2Fe2Fe1−xMnxO7 have been investigated for x ranging from 0 to 0.86. Experimental measurements reveal that substitution of Mn for Fe could evidently influence the low temperature magnetic transition. Moreover, ferroelectric analysis suggests that introduction of Mn ions in this layered system can efficiently suppress the conducting leakage and result in clear hysteresis loops in the polarization–electric field switching curves. The charge ordering states in Lu2Fe2Fe1−xMnxO7 characterized by two incommensurate modulations has been observed and discussed in association with the local spontaneous polarizations.

High-quality GaNAs∕GaAs quantum wells with light emission up to 1.44μm grown by molecular-beam epitaxy

High-quality GaNAs/GaAs quantum wells with high substitutional N concentrations, grown by molecular-beam epitaxy, are demonstrated using a reduced growth rate in a range of 0.125-1 mu m/h. No phase separation is observed and the GaNAs well thickness is limited by the critical thickness. Strong room-temperature photoluminescence with a record long wavelength of 1.44 mu m is obtained from an 18-nm-thick GaN0.06As0.94/GaAs quantum well

A Sketch-Based Approach for Interactive Organization of Video Clips

With the rapid growth of video resources, techniques for efficient organization of video clips are becoming appealing in the multimedia domain. In this article, a sketch-based approach is proposed to intuitively organize video clips by: (1) enhancing their narrations using sketch annotations and (2) structurizing the organization process by gesture-based free-form sketching on touch devices. There are two main contributions of this work. The first is a sketch graph, a novel representation for the narrative structure of video clips to facilitate content organization. The second is a method to perform context-aware sketch recommendation scalable to large video collections, enabling common users to easily organize sketch annotations. A prototype system integrating the proposed approach was evaluated on the basis of five different aspects concerning its performance and usability. Two sketch searching experiments showed that the proposed context-aware sketch recommendation outperforms, in terms of accuracy and scalability, two state-of-the-art sketch searching methods. Moreover, a user study showed that the sketch graph is consistently preferred over traditional representations such as keywords and keyframes. The second user study showed that the proposed approach is applicable in those scenarios where the video annotator and organizer were the same person. The third user study showed that, for video content organization, using sketch graph users took on average 1/3 less time than using a mass-market tool Movie Maker and took on average 1/4 less time than using a state-of-the-art sketch alternative. These results demonstrated that the proposed sketch graph approach is a promising video organization tool.

Collaborative Interaction for Videos on Mobile Devices Based on Sketch Gestures

With the rapid progress of the network and mobile techniques, mobile devices such as mobile phones and portable devices, have become one of the most important parts in common life. Efficient techniques for watching, navigating and sharing videos on mobile devices collaboratively are appealing in mobile environment. In this paper, we propose a novel approach supporting efficiently collaborative operations on videos with sketch gestures. Furthermore, effective collaborative annotation and navigation operations are given to interact with videos on mobile devices for facilitating users’ communication based on mobile devices’ characteristics. Gesture operation and collaborative interaction architecture are given and improved during the interactive process. Finally, a user study is conducted showing that the effectivity and collaborative accessibility of video exploration is improved.

An adaptive sketching user interface for education system in virtual reality

Sketching user interface and virtual reality (VR) techniques to education application has become popular, promising to make the teaching and learning experience more natural and efficient for users. The adaptive support can improve the intelligence during the interaction process between user and systems to emphasize the individual needs. In this paper, we present the sketching user interface for geometry teaching and the VR class integrated with the corresponding adaptation support, which meet the requirements for the education application. Furthermore, we analyze the sketch context for adaptive mechanism in the education system with an instance. Finally, a prototype based on the methods above is developed. An informal study is also done to show that it enhances the accessibility and individualization during the process of teaching and learning and helps to enhance user experience in human computer interaction.

An Interactive SpiralTape Video Summarization

A majority of video summarization systems use linear representations, such as rectangular storyboards and timelines at linear scales. In this paper, we propose a novel nonlinear dynamic representation called SpiralTape that summarizes a video in a smooth spiral pattern. SpiralTape provides an unusual and fresh activity suitable for stimulating environments such as science and technology museums, in which children or young individuals can have enjoyable experiences that create meaningful learning outcomes. In addition, SpiralTape provides an uninterrupted overall structure of video content and takes design principles including compactness, continuity, efficient overview, and interactivity into consideration. A working SpiralTape system was developed and deployed in pilot applications and exhibitions. Elaborate user studies with evaluation benchmarks on multiple metrics were conducted to compare SpiralTape with two representative linear video summarization methods and a state-of-the-art radial video visualization. The evaluation results demonstrate the effectiveness and natural interaction performance of SpiralTape.

Interactive multi-scale structures for summarizing video content

Efficient video summarization leads to facilely exploring video content appropriate to the user’s intention with low cognitive demand. In this paper, we present a novel approach for summarizing videos in the form of multi-scale structures that exhibit different video features at different scale levels and allow exploration of video contents with multi-scale interaction. The semantic relationship between structures is addressed and user intention is also considered and integrated in the summarization and interaction. This paper first introduces the concept of multi-scale structures for summarizing video content and describes three different types of structures that present important features at different scale levels. Furthermore, a continuous zooming interaction for browsing multi-scale structures is provided to facilitate video browsing. Finally, an elaborate user study is conducted showing that user performance on understanding and browsing videos is improved.