Tatiana Aires Tavares

HYPERPRESENCE-an application environment for control of multi-user agents in mixed reality spaces

The HYPERPRESENCE system proposed in this work is a mix between hardware and software platforms developed for control of multi-user agents in a mixed reality environment. The hardware is basically composed of robot systems that manipulate objects and move in a closed, real environment and a video camera, imaging system. The environment can be any place that provides or needs interactions with virtual environments for showing results or else to allow manipulation in it via a virtual reality interface. The software part is composed of three main systems: an acquisition module for position control, a tower (hardware) communication module for manipulating the robots and a multi user VRML server for managing virtual spaces and to provide synchronism between the real places and the virtual ones. We present the design and implementation solution adopted for the HYPERPRESENCE architecture. We analyze problems with communication protocols, precision of positioning, how to relate physical and virtual objects and show our solutions for these problems.

An approach to generate and embed sign language video tracks into multimedia contents

Deaf people have serious problems to access information due to their inherent difficulties to deal with spoken and written languages. This work tries to address this problem by proposing a solution for automatic generation and insertion of sign language video tracks into captioned digital multimedia content. Our solution can process a subtitle stream and generate the sign language track in real-time. Furthermore, it has a set of mechanisms that exploit human computation to generate and maintain their linguistic constructions. The solution was instantiated for the Digital TV, Web and Digital Cinema platforms and evaluated through a set of experiments with deaf users.

The Use of Natural Interaction to Enrich the User Experience in Telemedicine Systems

Human communication always used gestures, movements and expressions as oral language support. Certain gestures are so commonly used around the world that are understood throughout different cultures and times, such as a wave or thumbs up. Natural Interaction is a way to apply this concept to user interfaces in computer systems. In this paper we discuss about the use of Natural Interaction features in a telemedicine system. More specifically, we demonstrate the use of natural interaction interfaces for control and manipulation of 3D objects inside Arthron tool. Arthron is a telemedicine tool used for surgery transmissions.

A Multi-stream Tool to Support Transmission in Surgery Applied to Telemedicine

The increasing network bandwidth capacity and the diminishing costs of related services have led to a rising number of applications in the field of Information and Communication Technology. A special case is applications based on video streaming. Telemedicine can be highlighted in some scenarios for applying this technology, such as clinical sessions, second medical opinion, interactive lessons or virtual conferences. These scenarios often imply a dedicated transmission environment. A restriction in such solutions is the inability to handle multiple video streams. Thus, this paper presents a low-cost infrastructure for video collaboration in healthcare and based on open technologies. The proposed infrastructure enables remote management of simultaneous multiple streams. We also discuss results of experiments held in the Lauro Wanderley Academic Hospital, Brazil. One of the results is the contribution for teaching experiences, particularly by allowing students to remotely regard surgical procedures and providing real-time interaction. Finally, we present new prospects for using the developed technology on other applications in Telemedicine and Telepresence.

Sharing virtual acoustic spaces over interactive TV programs - presenting "Virtual Cheering" application

The work presents a proposal for a new class of interactive television programs, which we call immersive television programs. This class of programs promotes group creation to engage in common and cooperative activities in digital television platforms supporting acoustic space sharing. The paper also includes one example of an entertainment program named Virtual Cheering.

Automatic generation of Brazilian sign language windows for digital TV systems

Deaf people have serious difficulties accessing information. The support for sign language (their primary means of communication) is rarely addressed in information and communication technologies. Furthermore, there is a lack of works related to machine translation for sign language in real-time and open-domain scenarios, such as TV. To minimize these problems, in this paper, we propose an architecture for machine translation to Brazilian sign language (LIBRAS) and its integration, implementation and evaluation for digital TV systems, a real-time and open-domain scenario. The system, called LibrasTV, allows the LIBRAS windows to be generated and displayed automatically from a closed caption input stream in Brazilian Portuguese. LibrasTV also uses some strategies, such as low time consuming, text-to-gloss machine translation and LIBRAS dictionaries to minimize the computational resources needed to generate the LIBRAS windows in real-time. As a case study, we implemented a prototype of LibrasTV for the Brazilian digital TV system and performed some tests with Brazilian deaf users to evaluate it. Our preliminary evaluation indicated that the proposal is efficient, as long as its delays and bandwidth are low. In addition, as previously mentioned in the literature, avatar-based approaches are not the first choice for the majority of deaf users, who prefer human translation. However, when human interpreters are not available, our proposal is presented as a practical and feasible alternative to fill this gap.

ATHUS: A Generic Framework for Game Development on Ginga Middleware

Games are ancient tools of entertainment for humans, but also serve as tools for your intellectual growth. Games are also a way to overcome our limits, since they essentially have the character of a challenge. A game should give the player the ability to solve problems generated by the dynamics of the game. Thus we have a simple definition of play: the game is an activity of problem solving that provides fun. Due to its large capacity for games, it is important to explore the capabilities of games for the DTV, for that we present a propose of a generic framework for developing games that aims to facilitate the development of games for the Ginga, and other studies on games for DTV.

The Use of Multisensory User Interfaces for Games Centered in People with Cerebral Palsy

The evolution of user interfaces has improved the user experience, especially the sensory features. Also, the sensory aspect is crucial for the interaction, mainly for the development of effective assistive technologies. This study presents a game for people with Cerebral Palsy (CP). CP refers to a range of clinical syndromes characterized by motor disorders and postural changes that may or may not be associated with cognitive impairment and speech disorders. Due to restricted motor condition, sports and games become difficult for people with CP. Our challenge is to offer an alternative to people with PC based on tangible and multisensory devices. The use of a robotic ball allowed remote manipulation, which makes this solution useful for people with physical disabilities. Also, an user centered design process was adopted. The game encourages people to interact by using different control devices, making it an important resource for promoting play in these users.

A Step Beyond Visualization: Applying User Interface Techniques to Improve Satellite Data Interaction

In this paper, we discuss the potential of applying interaction techniques to manipulate GEO satellite data. The proposed study shows the potential of Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) data in refining the mesoscale analyses incorporating HCI techniques, as natural interaction resources. Moreover the software tools used to develop the interaction layer,is based on open source codes. Open source codes are also used for geolocation and geographical information systems, written for the transformation of MSG data into input files. This feature have demonstrated a great flexibility and ease of use. The study open up an avenue for successive validation and refinement of the analyses together with their improved implementation for operational nowcasting and very short range forecasting applications.

Experiences with Arthron for Live Surgery Transmission in Brazilian Telemedicine University Network

The increasing network bandwidth capacity and the diminishing costs of related services have led to a rising number of applications in the field of Information and Communication Technology. A special case is applications based on video streaming. Telemedicine can be highlighted in some scenarios for applying this technology, such as clinical sessions, second medical opinion, interactive lessons or virtual conferences. These scenarios often imply a dedicated transmission environment. A restriction in such solutions is the inability to handle multiple video streams. Thus, this paper presents a low-cost infrastructure for video collaboration in healthcare and based on open technologies. The proposed infrastructure enables remote management of simultaneous multiple streams. We also discuss results of experiments held in the Lauro Wanderley Academic Hospital, Brazil. One of the results is the contribution for teaching experiences, particularly by allowing students to remotely regard surgical procedures and providing real-time interaction. Finally, we present new prospects for using the developed technology on other applications in Telemedicine and Telepresence.