Shang Ping Lee

Age invaders: social and physical inter-generational family entertainment

This paper introduces Age Invaders (AI), a novel interactive intergeneration social-physical game which allows the elderly to play harmoniously together with children in physical space while parents can participate in the game play in real time remotely through the internet.

Real-time 3D human capture system for mixed-reality art and entertainment

A real-time system for capturing humans in 3D and placing them into a mixed reality environment is presented in this paper. Nine cameras surrounding her capture the subject. Looking through a head-mounted-display with a camera in front pointing at a marker, the user can see the 3D image of this subject overlaid onto a mixed reality scene. The 3D images of the subject viewed from this viewpoint are constructed using a robust and fast shape-from-silhouette algorithm. The paper also presents several techniques to produce good quality and speed up the whole system. The frame rate of our system is around 25 fps using only standard Intel processor-based personal computers. Besides a remote live 3D conferencing and collaborating system, we also describe an application of the system in art and entertainment, named Magic Land, which is a mixed reality environment where captured avatars of human and 3D computer generated virtual animations can form an interactive story and play with each other. This system demonstrates many technologies in human computer interaction: mixed reality, tangible interaction, and 3D communication. The result of the user study not only emphasizes the benefits, but also addresses some issues of these technologies.

Social and physical interactive paradigms for mixed-reality entertainment

This article outlines an overview of new paradigms in social and physical interaction in mixed-reality entertainment. Social and physical interactions are constrained, and thus natural interactions are lost in most current digital entertainment systems. In order to regain natural interactions, we argue that mixed-reality technology has great potential for promoting social and physical interactions. In this article we present five research prototype systems, Magic Land, Human Pacman, Kyoto Garden, Poultry Internet, and Free Network Visible Network (FNVN), to explain methods to regain natural social and physical interactions in mixed-reality entertainment. We believe these systems are part of a new form of entertainment based on physicality, mobility, tangible social interaction, and ubiquitous computing. Some details, benefits, and issues regarding design are discussed.

Poultry.Internet: a remote human-pet interaction system

Poultry.Internet leverages on the reach of the Internet to connect humans and pets at different locations. This system has a tangible interface encompassing both visual and tactile modes of communication. It allows humans to interact remotely with pets anytime, anywhere. The pet owner views the real time movement of the pet in the form of a pet doll sitting on a mechanical positioning system. Meanwhile, the real pet wears a special jacket, which is able to reproduce the touching sensation. The pet owner can tangibly touch the pet doll, sending touch signals to the pet far away. Also, the pet owner receives a haptic feedback from the movement of the pet.

Human Pacman: a mobile wide-area entertainment system based on physical, social, and ubiquitous computing

Human Pacman is a novel mixed reality interactive entertainment system that ventures to embed the natural physical world seamlessly with a fantasy virtual playground by capitalizing on infrastructure provided by wearable computer, mixed reality, and ubiquitous computing research. We have progressed from the old days of 2D arcade Pacman on screens, with incremental development, to the popular 3D game home console Pacman, and the recent mobile online Pacman. Finally with our research system Human Pacman, we have a physical role-playing computer fantasy together with real human-social and mobile-gaming that emphasizes on collaboration and competition between players in a wide outdoor area that allows natural wide-area human-physical movements. Pacmen and Ghosts are now human players in the real world experiencing computer graphics fantasy-reality by using the wearable computers on them. Virtual cookies and actual tangible physical objects are incorporated into the game play to provide unique experiences of seamless transitions between real and virtual worlds. We believe Human Pacman is pioneering a new form of gaming that anchors on physicality, mobility, social interaction, and ubiquitous computing.

Combining the real and cyber worlds using mixed reality and human centered media

This paper outlines new facilities within ubiquitous human media spaces supporting embodied interaction between humans and computation both socially and physically. We believe that the current approach to developing electronic based design environments is fundamentally defective with regard to support for multi-person multi-modal design interactions. In this paper, we present an alternative ubiquitous computing environment based on an integrated design of real and virtual worlds. We implement three different research prototype systems: the Virtual Kyoto Garden, touchy Internet, and the human pacman. The functional capabilities implemented in these systems include spatially-aware 3D navigation, tangible interaction, and ubiquitous human media spaces. Some of its details, benefits, and issues regarding design support are discussed

Internet pajama

Internet Pajama is a novel application aimed at promoting physical closeness in remote communication between parent and child. A special pajama suit which is able to reproduce a hugging sensation is developed for the child. Parent is able to hug and physically interact with child by hugging a doll. Both pajama and doll are connected wirelessly to the Internet. Other features are incorporated to enhance the interaction and physical presence.

Internet.Pajama

Internet.Pajama is a novel application aimed at promoting physical closeness in remote communication between parents and children. A special pajama suit which is able to reproduce a hugging sensation is developed for the child. Parent is able to hug and physically interact with child by hugging a doll. Both pajama and doll are connected wirelessly through the Internet. The pajama also changes color and temperature according to how far away parent is from child.

Age invaders

The cultural and generation gaps between the young and the old have been growing in our modern age. This paper introduces Age Invaders, a novel social-physical game which allows the elderly to play harmoniously together with children in physical space.

Haptic interaction in augmented reality

In an interactive augmented reality (AR) system, people are, most of the time, immersed in an environment rich of visual and audio feedback. The sense of touch is lacking in most of the AR environment. We present an augmented reality system where people can see life-size virtual human avatar in a real environment, and be able to have a physical haptic interaction with the avatar.