Tsuneo Kagawa

A Touch Screen Interface Design with Tactile Feedback

Various information displays are becoming available for implementing new kinds of human computer interaction (HCI) methods. Touch screen devices become the most popular choice among many types and models. They have been used in wide range of applications and are proven to be a useful infrastructure for creating intuitive HCI. In spite of their popularity, there are some weak points. The most serious drawback is their hardness for operation especially for the weak in information technology such as elderly and blind users. A tactile feedback function has a potential ability for enabling them to make full use of the devices. We consider the tactile interaction as communication modality for complementing other channels such as visual and auditory senses and improving intuitiveness for various operations. To make the tactile interface a practical communication channel, a design principle for implementing mutually discriminable tactile stimuli is required. The principle should define multiple stimulus patterns giving users distinctive tactile impressions. Our goal is to empirically work out the principle through developing an experiment system for checking varied tactile effects and discovering good solutions. In this paper, we elaborate the system implemented by using a type of touch screen tactile display and some experiments conducted for exploring the principle.

A Tangible Information Explorer Using Vibratory Touch Screen

Touch panel displays are becoming available for implementing futuristic human computer interaction (HCI) methods and are proven to be a useful infrastructure for creating intuitive HCI. In spite of their popularity, there are some drawbacks. The most serious one is their hardness to operate especially for the weak in information technology such as elderly and blind users. A tactile feedback function has a potential ability for enabling them to make full use of the devices. We propose an approach for effectively designing user-friendly HCI based on the tactile feedback. We exemplify our approach through the design and development of a practical application, a hap tic web browser. It allows even the weak users to intuitively explore various web pages without heavily depending on the visual information. While the system targets at supporting the weak, the touch interactions are quite useful means for general public to improve the stability and the degree of satisfaction in web browsing operations. The proposed system uses a touch panel hap tic display for helping the users to operate with intuitive touch sensations.

A touch screen interface design with tactile feedback for practical applications

Various information displays are becoming available for implementing new kinds of human computer interaction (HCI) methods. Touch screen devices become the most popular choice among many types and models. They have been used in wide range of applications and are proven to be a useful infrastructure for creating intuitive HCI. In spite of their popularity, there are some weak points. The most serious drawback is their hardness for operation especially for the weak in information technology such as elderly and blind users. A tactile feedback function has a potential ability for enabling them to make full use of the devices. We consider the tactile interaction as communication modality for complementing other channels such as visual and auditory senses and improving intuitiveness for various operations. To make the tactile interface a practical communication channel, a design principle for implementing mutually discriminable tactile stimuli is required. The principle should define multiple stimulus patterns giving users distinctive tactile impressions. Our goal is to empirically work out the principle through developing an experiment system for checking varied tactile effects and discovering good solutions. In this paper, we elaborate the system implemented by using a type of touch screen tactile display and some experiments conducted for exploring the principle.

A Supporting Method of Medical Imaging Diagnosis with Sonification

Recently, Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) has become one of the most important for medical activity. The more exact and various CAD become, the larger amount of medical images are provided. Furthermore, these images become high definition. Radiologists have to cost their time and efforts to investigate these medical images. It is strongly required to reduce their burden without debasing the quality of imaging diagnosis. In this paper, we propose the technique to generate sound information based on the image features and discuss their sounds for diagnosis. Sonification technique helps for attention rousing and the fatigue reduction for medical imaging diagnosis.

An Avatar Motion Generation Method Based on Inverse Kinematics and Interactive Evolutionary Computation

This paper presents an automatic animation generation method for 3DCG humanoid avatars. We can create 3DCG animation even at the level of individuals by using commercially available software tools. Creating 3DCG animation, however, demands a variety of expertise and a mastery of 3DCG authoring tools. Therefore, people may easily be bothered for creating 3DCG animation contents. To solve the problem, we designed and developed a system allowing even novices to create 3DCG animation contents without special knowledge and programming skills. The proposed method uses Inverse Kinematics (IK) and Interactive Evolutionary Computation (IEC) for readily designing and generating avatar motions. The system only requires users to indicate some evaluation values and creates their preferable avatar motions based on the specified values. Additionally, we propose a new operation method to reduce the users burden in an IEC-based 3DCG contents generation.

A Tangible 3D Desktop Environment with Force Feedback

In recent yeas various 3D desktop environments have been developed. They dont, however, become a popular interaction method in HCI (human computer interface) research field. Restrictions in 3D operations using a mouse are the major reason. The mouse is inappropriate for manipulating objects in a 3D task space. Users have difficulties for adequately managing the mouse in 3D object manipulations. In this paper, we propose to replace the mouse by a haptic device, an interaction device enabling easy object manipulations in the 3D task space. The haptic device also allows the users to touch the objects with depth perceptions and feel some tactile sensations. It can present some special effects like shocks, vibrations, and weights when they touch the object. We designed and developed a 3D operational environment where the desktop can be treated as a real world property by using the haptic device. We describe the implementation method and operational interface of the proposed new 3D desktop environment empowered by the haptic device and an experiment conducted for verifying the effectiveness of the proposed system.

A Mobile AR Assistant for Campus Area Network Management

Network infrastructure needs to be managed in response to frequent revisions of organization. VLAN (Virtual LAN) is a key technology for flexibly configuring the network. It enables to reconfigure the network without changing physical cabling for accommodating it to the current organizational structure. Accurately configuring VLAN structure, however, is a complicated task and highly-skilled administrators can only perform the task. In this paper, we propose a mobile assistant for visually administering VLAN configuration using AR (Augmented Reality). When an administrator simply looks at a specific switch device, the proposed system acquires the latest configuration information about the device and graphically superimposes the result. The administrator can also invoke some commands to validate the configuration result without typing them by using the system. It can assist even less-experienced administrators to easily grasp the VLAN configuration and perform some basic management tasks.

A 3D Editing Method with Hand Gesture Using Sound Information

3D printing technology has been progressed so even non-professional users can construct some products with 3D printers. However, such users have to operate 3D model to arrange or transform for 3D printing. We study about easier modeling applications for novice users and propose immersive 3D modeling environment. In the environment, they edit a relatively large 3D model with direct manipulation. Too much visual feedback may impede 3D editing operations. In this paper, we consider and discuss about 3D editing method with sound information and evaluating experiments that we had.

A digital contents management system using a real booklet interface with augmented reality

We propose a digital contents management method based on a book-style interface usable in a normal office environment. Augmented reality (AR) is applied to implement an easy-to-use interface. In the proposed method, multimedia contents are projected on a real booklet including a number of AR markers. Each booklet page has a printed maker and two different contents are superimposed on double pages. Users can feel that they are reading a book consisting of various types of contents such as texts, presentation slides, and images. Furthermore, we utilise the motion sensor Kinect to recognise the users’ gestures. The detected gestures can be used to activate some built-in procedures such as picking a page up and placing it in a real work space. In this paper, we describe the concept of the proposed book-style interface, its implementation method, and experiments conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

A Sonification Method for Medical Images to Support Diagnostic Imaging

Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) has become one of the most important for medical activity. While various CAD image become more exact, the larger amount of high-definition images are provided. Radiologists have to cost their time and efforts to investigate these medical images. It is strongly required to reduce their burden without debasing the quality of imaging diagnosis. In this paper, we propose a method to generate sound information based on the image features and discuss their sounds for diagnosis. Sonification technique helps for attention rousing and the fatigue reduction for medical imaging diagnosis.