Hiroko Uchiyama

Facial reconstruction of Egyptian mummy "Senu"

mummy “Senu”, believed to be more than 3700 years old. This mummy was excavated from the undisturbed tomb at the Dahshur north archeological site by a team from Waseda University in January 2005. Digital technology was first used by Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto in 1977 to CT scan the Egyptian mummy.[2] Attardi et al. [1] in 1999 made a facial reconstruction from CT data using 3D computer graphics, and the team of National Geographic[5] reconstructed the face of Tutankhamun in 2005. Kahler et al.[3] proposed a facial reconstruction method that is based on anatomy to incorporate skin and muscle. Our project is the collaboration between anatomists, Egyptologists and digital artists to produce photo-realistic 3D digital facial reconstruction based on anatomy and Egyptology.

Breathing clothes: artworks using the hairlytop interface

Breathing clothes are media artworks formed as an application of the hairlytop interface. The hairlytop interface is an assembly of fine, soft and deformable actuators. Each actuator is composed of a shape memory alloy (SMA) and drive circuits. Various types of sensors can be connected to the driving circuits. The actuators can then deform in reaction to surrounding stimuli, including light, sound, and human activity. The high flexibility of this configuration and its unique motion enables us to compose various interface types, such as furry decorated interfaces and new deformable textiles. In this paper, we describe in detail several types of clothes composed of this unique fabric combined with the hairlytop interface. The clothes act based on the wearers breathing action, which acts as an indicator of the emotional state of the wearer.

Expansion of Textile Expression Utilizing Op Art Methods and Transmissive Liquid Crystal Film, and Progress toward Its Use in Garments

In this study, we describe the development of new textiles and garments created through the cross-fertilization of op art methods and smart materials. We have developed a pattern expression method that involves layering transmissive liquid crystal film into which dot patterns have been cut and modifying the pattern by changing the level of the films transparency. In addition, we demonstrated that it is possible to express a greater variety of patterns by combining this with a printed pattern. Furthermore, as an application, the design of garments is proposed.

Development and Evaluation of an Interactive Therapy Robot

Interactions with animals can enhance emotions and improve mood by engendering feelings of healing, relaxation, comfort, and reduced stress. Un-fortunately, many people cannot live with animals because of allergies, infection risk, or risk of damage to rental housing. To address these problems, some research groups have investigated robot-based psychotherapy. However, the important healing elements for therapy robots were not identified. Therefore, we conducted an Internet survey to determine the design elements of such a robot that might engender a healing mood and the functions that should be implemented. We assumed that a healing mood could be induced based on the interactive functions and appearance. To verify this hypothesis, we developed and evaluated a new interactive therapy robot. Next, we conducted interviews with individuals who interacted with a prototype therapy robot. The interviews revealed that the appearance of the robot was critical to engendering feelings of healing, comfort, and empathy. In addition, the size, softness, and comfort of the interactive therapy robot contributed to people feeling affection towards it. We also confirmed the importance of the robot appearing to listen to those who interacted with it. Our results should be useful for designing companion robots for therapy purposes.

Development of a Toolkit for Creating Kinetic Garments Based on Smart Hair Technology

Although there are many kinetic garment artworks and studies (ex [3]), installing kinetic elements into garments is often difficult for people in the field of textile. The reason for this issue comes from the complexity of kinetic elements to be handled by such people. Thus, simple technology is required to enable those people to create new kinetic garment easily. In this project, we propose a simple toolkit that enables installing kinetic function to textiles. This toolkit is composed of Smart Hair(s), a fine, light weighted bending actuator, and an Arduino based microcomputer. The basic design of the proposed toolkit will be described. Furthermore, we held a workshop in cooperation with students who major in fashion and textile to investigate the effect of this toolkit.

Design Proposal of Space Clothes that Supports Lives in the Future Space Tourism Era

In a near future, many people will be able to visit and stay in the space hotels easier than now days. In this situation, a novel clothes that fit to the special environment will be required. In this paper, we describe the detail of a prototype of “space clothes”, a new clothes design that could solve the appearance and functionality conditions shown below.Conventional clothes especially skirts and loosely designed shirts are often difficult to be worn in space because it restricts wearer’s motion. On the other hand, such clothes are often preferred by women because of their elegance. The both elegance and functionality must be achieved for the clothes of the future space tourists.All the future space tourists should suffer from space sickness and sunburns by ultraviolet rays. Those issues will worsen the experience in the space. Future clothes for space tourists should be able to solve or be able to mitigate them. Based on these conditions, we developed a prototype of clothes for future space tourists(Figure 1(a)). This clothes is carefully designed to achieve both functionality and elegance. In addition, it embedded with bio-informatics display system to share wearer’s health status among other tourists to enable early initial treatment(Figure 1(b)). We believe that this paper could be a good opportunity to initiate the discussion to clear new market of clothes in space.

Please show me inside: improving the depth perception using virtual mask in stereoscopic AR

A practical application of Augmented Reality (AR) is see-through vision, a technique that enables a user to observe a virtual object located behind a real object by superimposing the virtually visualized inner object onto the real object surface. This technique is considered to be effective in several areas, including medical [Bichlmeier et al. 2007] [Lerotic et al. 2007] [Nicolau et al. 2011] [Sielhorst, et al. 2006] and industrial visualizations [Schall et al. 2009] [Zollmann et al. 2010]. In these applications, one challenge is determining how to cause a virtual object to appear behind a real object surface.

Bio-Collar: a wearable optic-kinetic display for awareness of bio-status

Advances in sensor technology allow us to wear various sensors that detect bio-signals, such as body posture, body movement, heart rate and respiration rate. Compared with the many options of wearable sensors available, the options of display methods are limited. This paper proposes the Bio-Collar, which is a novel collar-shaped wearable bio-status display. The Bio-Collar indicates the wearers bio-status through its color and kinetic motion.

Semi-transparent augmented reality system

We have developed a new Semi-Transparent Augmented Reality (AR) system that displays the inner structures of objects by making their surface semi-transparent. In this system we combine the live video of the object of interest and 3D computer graphics (3DCG) models with appropriate transparency and in proper order using AR technology. This system shows the 3DCG models of inner structures as if they existed inside the object.

Photorealistic facial reconstruction of Ramses II for virtual sets

This paper presents a facial reconstruction and photorealistic visualization technique of the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II. G. Attardi et al. [1] have reconstructed a three dimensional computer graphics facial model from computerized tomography data. K. Kahler et al. [2] have successfully visualized a facial expression model made from facial expression muscles. We obtained x-ray photographs capturing the cranial bones of Ramses II from Professor Faure, who headed the x-ray photography of Ramses II. Our facial reconstruction process is based on the x-ray photographs. In addition, we have made photorealistic visualization of Ramses II using subsurface scattering technique to capture the complex reflection model of the skin. Furthermore, we used the rendering results in Virtual Sets of a television program.