Kimiya Yamaashi

Object-oriented video: interaction with real-world objects through live video

Graphics and live video are widely employed in remotely-controlled systems like industrial plants. Interaction with live video is, however, more limited compared with graphics as users cannot interact with objects being observed in the former. Object-Oriented Video techniques are described allowing object-oriented interactions, including the use of real-world objects in live video as reference cues, direct manipulation of them, and graphic overlays based on them, which enable users to work in a real spatial context conveyed by the video. Users thereby understand intuitively what they are operating and see the result of their operation.

Courtyard: integrating shared overview on a large screen and per-user detail on individual screens

The operation of complex real-world systems, such as industrial plants, requires that multiple users cooperate in monitoring and controlling large amounts of information to supervise complex processes. The Court yard system supports such cooperative work by integrating an overview on a shared large screen and detail on individual screens. This integration is realized by two approaches: (1) providing an implicit way of transferring mouse and keyboard control between the shared and individual screens, and (2) supporting association between the overview on the shared screen and per-user detail on individual screens. Courtyard allows a user to move a mouse pointer between the shared and individual screens as though they were contiguous, and to access per-user detailed information on the user’s individual screen simply by pointing to an object on the shared screen. Courtyard selects the detailed information according to the tasks assigned to the pointing user under a division of labor. The former approach results in an interface that is as simple, intuitive and consistent to use as that for a single screen. The latter enables a user to retrieve easily and quickly detailed information needed for performing the assigned tasks without being distracted by information for others.

User-Centered Video: transmitting video images based on the user's interest

Many applications, such as video conference systems and remotely controlled systems, need to transmit multiple video images through narrow band networks. However, high quality transmission of the video images is not possible within the network bandwidth. This paper describes a technique, User-Centered Video (UCV), which transmits multiple video images through a network by changing quality of the video images based on a users interest. The UCV assigns a network data rate to each video image in proportion to the users interest. The UCV transmits video images of interest with high quality, while degrading the remaining video images. The video images are degraded in the space and time domains (e.g., spatial resolution, frame rate) to fit them into the assigned data rates. The UCV evaluates the degree of the users interest based on the window layouts. The user thereby obtains both the video images of interest, in detail, and the global context of video images, even through a narrow band network.

Fisheye videos: distorting multiple videos in space and time domain according to users' interests

Many applications, such as tele-conference systems and plant control systems need to display a large number of videos. In those applications, displaying multiple video windows overwhelms limited computing resources (e.g., network capacity, processing power) due to the vast amount of information. This paper describes a technique allows multiple videos to display in the limited computing resources. This technique distorts multiple videos according to users’ interest. Users are not interested in all videos simultaneously. They only look at a part of them in detail and get the global context of other videos. The technique displays videos of interest in more detail by degrading other videos to allow an efficient use of limited computing resources, which we call the Fisheye Videos technique, The technique distorts a video in the space and time domain (e.g., spatial resolution, frame rate) according to users’ interests, which are estimat@ based on the window conditions such as its distance from a focused window and the amount of masked area by other windows.

Hyperplant: Interaction with Plant through Live Video

Abstract This paper proposes an Object-Oriented Video technique, which enables operators to interact with objects in a live video just as they interact with graphic objects, and introduces a prototype system, HyperPlant, which has been implemented to demonstrate effectiveness of this technique. The Object-Oriented Video technique conveys realities of plants to operators in a control center and allows them to work on tasks in real spatial context. This context helps operators to intuitively grasp what they are doing and what is going on as the result of their actions.