Hideki Shimada

Augmented Reality Marker for Operating Home Appliances

The popularity of network home appliances that can interconnect with other home appliances through networks increases. The operation and function of these appliances are complex since they can share contents and data with other network home appliances. However, it remains difficult for users to identify network home appliances, since their locations are not installed and cannot be displayed easily when operating them. Because these problems, more obvious and intuitive operations are needed for controlling network home appliances. For this solution, we have implemented augmented reality (AR) technology in our past proposed system for easier, intuitive operation to control multiple network home appliances connected by home networks. AR technology can provide virtual graphics and apply additional information to specific areas through camera displays. In current AR technology, an AR marker made from a graphical image (an image marker) is necessary to display the virtual AR graphics to the devicess identified location. Unfortunately, such image markers are not suitable when they are implemented on network home appliances due to poor recognition when lighting environments or distances are changed. In this paper, we explain the LED augmented reality marker (LED marker), implement a new marker, and evaluate it, and consider a collaboration system for controlling multiple network home appliances connected to home networks.

Visualization and control system for wireless network using augmented reality technology

There are various kinds of wireless network devices, such as cellular phone and wireless sensors, around us in a ubiquitous environment. Unlike a wired network, we cannot grasp the exact status of a wireless network in real space. Moreover, it is difficult to understand the relationships of connectivity intuitively, since network management software is used in a virtual two-dimensional space. We propose and implement EVANS (Embodied Visualization with AR for Network System) as a visualization system for wireless networks. EVANS shows the status of a wireless network on an interface that uses AR technology, which allows us to grasp the status among nodes intuitively. In addition, we can use EVANS to actually manipulate nodes in real space by manipulating the annotations on the AR interface.

EVANS 3: Home appliance control system with appliance authentication framework using Augmented Reality technology

The popularity of home appliances continues to increase that can interconnect with other appliances through networks. For users who want to identify the network home appliances they want to operate, their operation is complex and difficult since their locations are not represented within the operating system. We propose Embodied Visualization with Augmented Reality for Networked System 3 (EVANS 3) to solve operation problems with obvious and intuitive controls by implementing augmented reality (AR) technology. We implemented our proposed LED Marker instead of the use of graphical images (image markers) as the AR markers to identify the network home appliances location at any distant and altering light environments. By dynamically operating LED Markers, we can achieve a comfortable and effective appliance authentication environment for suitable operating conditions.

Design and Implementation of Sensor Network Device Control System with AR Technology

Sensor networks, which can immediately detect events and situations and automatically control actuators, are expected to proliferate in the future, even though their visualization of sensor networks has not been emphasized. Identifying broken nodes in real environments remains difficult using a traditional visualization tool that plots the virtual diagram on which sensor nodes are put. In this paper, we propose and implement a control system of sensor network devices with AR technology. Our proposed system displays sensor data and network information such as the link status, the packet data, and the traffic in the sensor network on an AR interface. In addition, we control the sensor devices through the AR interface. Our proposed system allows users to intuitively acquire the status of sensor networks. We can also control the devices through the AR interface.

Self-ordering system of restaurants for considering allergy information

In recent years, many restaurants have adopted Self-ordering systems. Conventional Self-ordering systems place tablet-type devices on tables for customers, even though such systems impose high installation costs without supporting personalized menus. They also fail to reduce food allergy incidents at restaurants. Since existing paper menus or Self-ordering systems present identical menus to all customers, individual customer information is not considered. We propose and implement a system that presents a menu using a customer information terminal which is personalized using the customers user information. Customers can order food from it. In addition, we survey and evaluate our proposed system and show that usefulness of its superimposed display of additional menu information. We expect that additional functions will also be benefical for non-allergic holders.

Multi-Stream Viewer: Simultaneous viewing system for streaming videos with the time tag

As the Internet, computer technology, and peripheral devices continue to grow, web services for users are increasing, including such streaming video broadcast services as YouTube and Ustream that allow users to watch the streaming in which they are interested. In the current streaming video broadcast services, users search for streaming videos by title and tag information. However, since many streaming videos have insufficient information, they are often difficult to find. In addition, since only one streaming video can be watched in one browser, simultaneously comparing two or more streaming videos is difficult. In this research, we propose Multi-Stream Viewer as a simultaneous viewing system for streaming videos with tag information added to the time axis to enable users to watch streaming videos. We also implement and evaluate our proposed system.