Saeko Takagi

An educational tool for basic techniques in beginner's pencil drawing

A picture is one of important research subjects in order to make our life spiritually rich. Most studies on pictures, however, only propose some substitute functions of actual drawing or painting materials. There is no system that evaluates pictures drawn by users and gives advice about them. We propose a learning support system for basic techniques in beginners pencil drawing. The proposed system receives a subject (motif) data set and an image of users sketch and returns advice to the user. The system is composed of the four subsystems: feature extraction of motifs, feature extraction of sketches, error identification, and generation and presentation of advice. We developed and experimented a prototype system limited to treat a basic motif and some principal advice. As a result, the validity of the proposed system was confirmed.

Automatic image retargeting

We present a non-photorealistic algorithm for retargeting large images to small size displays, particularly on mobile devices. This method adapts large images so that important objects in the image are still recognizable when displayed at a lower target resolution. Existing image manipulation techniques such as cropping works well for images containing a single important object, and downsampling works well for images containing low frequency information. However, when these techniques are automatically applied to images with multiple objects, the image quality degrades and important information may be lost. Our algorithm addresses the case of multiple important objects in an image. The retargeting algorithm segments an image into regions, identifies important regions, removes them, fills the resulting gaps, resizes the remaining image, and re-inserts the important regions. Our approach lies in constructing a topologically constrained epitome of an image based on a visual attention model that is both comprehensible and size varying, making the method suitable for display-critical applications. CR Categories: I.3.3 [Computer Graphics]: Picture/Image Generation—Display Algorithms;

A learning support system for beginners in pencil drawing

A picture is one of important research subjects to make our life spiritually rich. Most studies on pictures, however, only propose some substitute functions of actual drawing or painting materials. There is no system that evaluates pictures drawn by users and gives advice about them. We propose a learning support system of beginners pencil drawing that is the basis of pictures. Our system receives a motif data set and a users sketch image, and returns advice to the user. The processing is composed of the four functions: feature extraction of motifs, feature extraction of sketches, error identification, and generation and presentation of advice. We developed and experimented a prototype system limited to treat a basic motif and principal advice. As a result, the validity of the proposed system was confirmed.

Sketch learning environment based on drawing skill analysis

Skill knowledge is important human knowledge as well as symbolic knowledge. Definition of skill knowledge is knowledge on high level technique that human acquire through repeated training. Skill knowledge is needed for arts, sports and crafts. It concerns human body structure, muscles, and joints. Also, skill knowledge concerns process of human interaction with objects, namely, recognition and action. There are many researches on learning support system for describable knowledge, such as mathematics, physics, grammar, etc. However, there is few pieces of research on learning support system for skill such as arts and sports. This paper analyses skills and generalize skill features. Then we describe problems to diagnose skill errors. After that, we introduce a learning support system for sketch as an example of a skill learning support environment.

The proposal of the technique of error visualization for a learner's pencil drawing

In a pencil drawing class, a teacher explains often the differences between a drawing and a motif by many ways; even so, it is difficult for most learners to understand the existence of errors in his/her drawing. When a learner watches the 3D model of his/her drawing from appropriate viewpoints, he/she is immediately aware of the errors. This paper describes the technique of error visualization from a learners erroneous drawing. We developed a drawing advice system that consists of a 3D model converter from a 2D image and an evaluation function to estimate the effect of the 3D model. We designed a geometrical formula that expresses the relation between the geometrical feature and the error expression in the teachers advice.

InCom: Support System for Informal Communication in 3D Virtual Worlds Generated from HTML Documents

The importance of informal communication on the Internet has been increasing in recent years. Several systems for informal communication have been developed. These systems, however, require a particular server and/or specialized 3D contents. In this paper, we propose a system, named InCom, for informal communication in a 3D virtual environment. Browsers which are component of InCom generate 3D virtual worlds from existing common 2D HTML documents. Browsers communicate in a peer-to-peer manner. Using avatars makes gaze awareness smooth. Our results show that users shared interests by gaze awareness.

Support system for informal communication in 3D Web world

The importance of informal communication on the Internet has been increasing in recent years. Several systems for informal communication are currently available to the public. These systems, however, require a particular server and/or specialized 3D content. In this paper, we propose a system for informal communication in a 3D virtual environment. The system makes 3D virtual worlds from existing common 2D HTML documents. Browsers communicate in a peer-to-peer manner. Construction and management of the system can be achieved with ease and at low cost in contrast with existing 3D virtual communication systems. Our results show that users shared interests by gaze awareness.