Yuichiro Kinoshita

User experiences with a virtual swimming interface exhibit

We created an exhibit based on a new locomotion interface for swimming in a virtual reality ocean environment as part of our Swimming Across the Pacific art project. In our exhibit we suspend the swimmer using a hand gliding and leg harness with pulleys and ropes in an 8ft-cubic swimming apparatus. The virtual reality ocean world has sky, sea waves, splashes, ocean floor and an avatar representing the swimmer who wears a tracked head-mounted display so he can watch himself swim. The audience sees the swimmer hanging in the apparatus overlaid on a video projection of his ocean swimming avatar. The avatar mimics the real swimmer’s movements sensed by eight magnetic position trackers attached to the swimmer. Over 500 people tried swimming and thousands watched during two exhibitions. We report our observations of swimmers and audiences engaged in and enjoying the experience leading us to identify design strategies for interactive exhibitions.

Development of Kansei estimation models for the sense of presence in audio-visual content

The term ‘presence’ is widely used to express the performances of audio-visual content and systems. Until now, many advanced audio-visual reproduction systems have been proposed to enable the perception of a higher degree of presence. Methodologies for evaluating the sense of presence derived from these systems also play an important role in the further evolution of audio-visual content and systems. This paper describes the construction of Kansei models which quantitatively evaluate the degree of presence in audio-visual content. Subjective evaluation experiments were conducted to investigate the relationship between the features of audio-visual content and the perceived sense of presence using 40 different types of audio-visual content. On the basis of evaluation scores and extracted audio-visual features, models were separately constructed for audio, visual and audio-visual content using neural networks. The performance tests of the constructed models demonstrated sufficient accuracy in estimating the sense of presence and statistically significant correlations between the model output and the subjective evaluation scores.

Kansei and colour harmony models for townscape evaluation

Abstract Townscape colours have been a main factor in urban development. For townscape colours, keeping colour harmony within the environment is a common goal. Expressing characteristics and impressions of the town in townscape colours are other meaningful goals. The colour planning support system proposed here is intended to improve townscapes. The system offers some colour combination proposals based on three elements: colour harmony, impressions of the townscape, and cost for the change of colours. The objective of the present paper is to construct the colour harmony and Kansei evaluation models that evaluate colour combinations in the colour planning support system. The colour harmony equations by Moon and Spencer are employed for the construction of the colour harmony model. The Kansei model, which quantifies the impressions of the townscape, is constructed from the approach of Kansei engineering with neural networks. After the construction, evaluation experiments are conducted for 20 subjects to test the performance of both models. The results of the tests show sufficient correlation between model output and subject response for each model.

A townscape evaluation system based on Kansei and colour harmony models

Townscape colours have been a main factor in urban-development problems. In a townscape, keeping harmony within the environment is a common goal. But expressing individuality and impressions of the town are also meaningful goals. We proposed a colour planning support system to improve townscapes. The system finds propositional colour combinations based on three elements: impressions of the townscape, colour harmony, and cost. We mainly discuss the evaluation methods in Kansei and colour harmony models. The colour harmony model evaluates the townscape colours from the approach of colour harmony. To construct the model, we adopted the colour harmony equations from those proposed by Moon and Spencer. After the construction, we conducted evaluation experiments for 20 subjects to test the model performance. The testing showed sufficient correlation between model output and subject response for implementation of the harmony model in the townscape evaluation system.

Townscape Color Planning System Using an Evolutionary Algorithm and Kansei Evaluations

Townscape colours have been a main issue in urban-development. For townscape colours, keeping colour harmony within the environment is a common goal. Expressing characteristics and impressions of the town in townscape colours are other meaningful goals. This paper describes the colour planning support system intended to improve town-scapes. The system offers some colour combination proposals based on three elements: colour harmony, impressions of the townscape, and cost for the change of colours. First, we develop evaluation models to quantify colour harmony and impression of the townscape from the approach of Kansei engineering. Next, the system is constructed using an evolutionary algorithm and the two evaluation models. After the construction, performance tests are conducted. The results show that our system achieved sufficient ability to propose appropriate colour combinations with minimum colour changes.

Neural network-based microphone array learning of temporal-spatial patterns of input signals

A sharp directional microphone array system was previously developed using a neural network. However, the system cannot distinguish two signals with different frequencies because it learns only the spatial pattern of the sound pressure distribution of the input signals. To overcome this problem, herein we propose a system that learns the temporal-spatial pattern of the input signals. The proposed system successfully obtains a wide-band super-directivity.

Kansei Estimation Models for the Sense of Presence in Audio-Visual Content with Different Audio Reproduction Methods

The performances of both audio-visual content and systems are often evaluated by the sense of presence, which can be divided into two aspects: content presence and system presence. In our previous study, we constructed neural-network-based Kansei estimation models to evaluate content presence. Herein we aim to incorporate system presence into the Kansei models. We initially examined five audio reproduction methods, which simulate different systems, and conducted subjective evaluation experiments using 12 audio-visual content items. The experiments indicate the audio reproduction method influences both the audio-only and audio-visual conditions, but the effect is larger in the audio-only condition. Thus, we introduced four features related to the spatial impression of sound as new inputs into the previous Kansei estimation models. The expanded models successfully estimated both the content presence and system presence regardless of the condition. Hence, these models can quantitatively estimate the sense of presence in both audio-visual content and systems.

Kansei stroll map: walking around a city using visualized impressions of streetscapes

Information about the nature and characteristics of streets is useful to tourists. This paper introduces the Kansei stroll map that visualizes streetscape impressions. First, subjective evaluation experiments were conducted to investigate the impressions of 475 streetscapes in Kyoto. Using the Kansei structure visualization technique, proposed by the present authors, these impressions from around the city were visualized using colour and colour density and then implemented on PCs. User studies with eight participants examined its use in planning routes and walking in the city. The user studies suggest that the visualized impressions provided by the Kansei stroll map help users to find less-known places and streets that match their interests.

Swimming across the Pacific: a virtual swimming interface

wimming Across the Pacific takes inspiration from the performance art piece Swimming Across the Atlantic. 1 Swimming Across the Atlantic was performed by the artist Alzek Misheff, who accomplished the endeavor by swimming in the pool of the Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner while it traveled from South Hampton to New York. More than 20 years later, we intend to accomplish the next stage of this performance piece by swimming across the Pacific Ocean, from Los Angeles to Tokyo, in an airplane. We have created a virtual swimming apparatus to fit inside a large passenger airplane. In our Swimming Across the Pacific artwork, we create a space for collaborative artwork in the airplane by having a swimmer swim while flying across the Pacific Ocean. The swimmer’s swimming represents a transformation of the airplane into an art gallery where the medium is the airplane, much as Misheff transformed the Queen Elizabeth II while he swam during her journey. By using elements such as the AV system, food, and clothing in the airplane for expression, fellow artists, scientists, engineers, musicians, media, and other passengers participate together to create artwork.

Design and Evaluation of EdgeWrite Alphabets for Round Face Smartwatches

This study presents a project aimed at designing and evaluating a unistroke gesture set of alphanumeric characters targeting round-face smartwatches. We conducted a user study with 10 participants to generate the basic gesture design for 40 characters. For each character, we measured the preference and agreement scores and uncovered any challenges faced in designing unistroke gestures for round-face smartwatches. We developed a gesture recognizer using machine learning, which used a backpropagation mechanism to evaluate the designed gestures. Using the gesture recognizer, we collected 80,000 gesture data, and evaluated them with 5-fold cross-validation. The obtained mean recognition rate was 92.14%.