Mikael Fernström

Sounding objects

Interactive systems, virtual environments, and information display applications need dynamic sound models rather than faithful audio reproductions. This implies three levels of research: auditory perception, physics-based sound modeling, and expressive parametric control. Parallel progress along these three lines leads to effective auditory displays that can complement or substitute visual displays. This article aims to shed some light on how psychologists, computer scientists, acousticians, and engineers can work together and address these and other questions arising in sound design for interactive multimedia systems.

Z-Tiles: building blocks for modular, pressure-sensing floorspaces

A new interactive floorspace has been developed which uses modular odes connected together to create a pressure-sensitive area of varying size and shape, giving it the potential to be integrated into an interactive environment. The floorspace uses an array of force-sensitive resistors on each node to detect pressure, and that pressure information is output by way of a self-organised network formed by the floor nodes. This paper describes the pressure sensing and network systems, suggests potential applications of the floorspace, and introduces the further research on in-network data aggregation being carried out using the systems framework.

The Shannon Portal Installation: Interaction Design for Public Places

The portal dolmen project at Irelands Shannon Airport tackled the challenges of a public exhibition and revealed the importance of focusing on situated activities as well as the crucial need for incorporating physical and aesthetic concerns into the design.

Including Visitor Contributions in Cultural Heritage Installations: Designing for Participation

Abstract In this paper we discuss how an interaction design perspective on the design of interactive artefacts in public spaces can encourage us to explore certain issues concerning the inclusion of visitor input into our installations. We see the role of technology as supporting peoples experiences of heritage–moving away from simple delivery of information towards enabling visitors to add to the content of the exhibition. This approach encourages active reflection, discussion and appropriation in the tradition of best practice in human-centred interaction (HCI) design. In this paper we discuss two exhibitions/installations in which we have been involved, Re-Tracing the Past and The Shannon Portal. The former was developed with the objective of engaging visitors and enhancing their overall experience of a personal museum collection; the latter had the goal of encouraging visitors and travellers to share their experience of Ireland. We then discuss the impact of this design strategy and analyse the role of visitors’ contributions to each exhibit, and the particular interactions between participants and the content they produced.

HCI design and interactive sonification for fingers and ears

We examine the use of auditory display for ubiquitous computing to extend the boundaries of human-computer interaction (HCI). Our design process is based on listening tests, gathering free-text identification responses from participants. The responses and their classifications indicate how accurately sounds are identified and help us identify possible metaphors and mappings of sound to human action and/or system status.

Audio information browsing with the Sonic Browser

Collections of sound and music of increasing size and diversity are used both by general personal computer users and multimedia designers. Browsing audio collections poses several challenges to the design of effective user interfaces. We present the Sonic Browser, an application for browsing sound collections on personal computers. We describe how a novel user interface with multiple views can be applied to the browsing of audio collections. Finally, we conclude with current trends of our approach for further improvement of the system.

After direct manipulation---direct sonification

The effectiveness of providing multiple-stream audio to support browsing on a computer was investigated through the iterative development and evaluation of a series of sonic browser prototypes. The data set used was a database containing music. Interactive sonification was provided in conjunction with simplified human--computer interaction sequences. It was investigated to what extent interactive sonification with multiple-stream audio could enhance browsing tasks, compared to interactive sonification with single-stream audio support. It was found that with interactive multiple-stream audio, the ten users could accurately complete the browsing tasks significantly faster than those who had single-stream audio support.

Explorations in Sonic Browsing

This paper describes a novel browser prototype that has been designed and implemented on PC’s and soundcards. Our focus has been on the development of a usable and engaging interface which exploits both visual and aural features of the data space. The project involves state-of-the-art work in human-computer interaction and multimedia development. We are working on a data set of musical compositions, and are designing and testing the prototype with a group of musicians. This paper provides some detail on the development process, the current architecture of the system, and describes some of the problems encountered.

Smart car parking system prototype utilizing CCTV nodes: A proof of concept prototype of a novel approach towards IoT-concept based smart parking

The use of smart parking systems has become very important especially for metropolitan areas, due to its benefits for the users regarding time, fuel consumption, and frustration when searching for a vacant parking space. This paper offers a review of recent advances in sensing and communication technology concerning smart parking systems. It includes a brief study of the selected topics and provides an implementation process of those selected systems. Moreover, this work proposes a design approach for a smart car parking system prototype based on utilizing Closed Circuit Television (CCTV), and also an algorithm for computer vision detection through simulation environment. The system has been deployed in a simulation environment. Furthermore, the system evaluation demonstrates the effectiveness of our design and implementation of the system and shows promising results. This paper discusses possible issues that might arise when using the system Also, problems and challenges are outlined.

Pervasive Computing Support in the Transition towards Personalised Health Systems

This paper discusses pervasive computing work in the transition from traditional health care programs to personalised health systems pHealth. A chronological guided transition survey is discussed to highlight trends in medicine describing their most recent developments about health care systems. Future trends in this interdisciplinary techno-medical area are described as research goals. Particularly, research and technological efforts concerning ICTs and pervasive computing in healthcare and medical applications are presented to identify systems requirements supporting secure and reliable networks and services. The main objectives are to summarise both the pHealth systems requirements providing end-user applications and the necessary pervasive computing support to interconnect device-based health care applications and distributed information data systems in secure and reliable forms, highlighting the role pervasive computing plays in this process. A generic personalised healthcare scheme is introduced to provide guidance in the transition and can be used for multiple medical and health applications. An example is briefly introduced by using the generic scheme proposed.