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Monday, March 15, 2010

Reading Circle 2010-03/15

Date: 03/15-2010
Participants: Azadeh, Liting, Miao
Today's Tasks: Disscus the second paper, "SmartOffice: An Intelligent and Interactive Environment"

Azadeh:
This article is about an intelligent environment (IE) which is
named SmartOffice. Users can work normally in this office. Interaction
happens in this environment using gesture and voice. SmartOffice is a
combination of several modules which work coherently. To provide such
an environment a resource-oriented system is required. All modules in
the context communicate with a supervisor as a resource. Actually the
supervisor is a resource manager. The supervisor is programmed with a
rule-based language and controls several different independent modules
and makes them cooperate together via “push” and “pull” messages.
The SmartOffice is composed of :
• 50 sensors
• 3 actuators
• 1 video-projector
• 2 speakers
In the SmartOffice architecture part we see that the office is a
square form room with a large office desk and one whiteboard and is
equipped by 7 cameras, 1 wide angle camera, 8 microphones, 1 video
projector, 2 speakers and 6 Linux Pentium III PCs. 4 of these PCs are
for vision processing in the other words user tracking and activities
recognition. 1 PC is responsible for video projection and image
processing of the MagicBoard and finally 1 PC hosts the supervisor.
All of the computers are connected to a local network. So this IE
works with all these components and equipments to provide a complete
natural space. The system architecture is centralized. All modules
communicate with a supervisor. Two communication types existing in
this system are push and pull messages. In push message a writing
process initiates the communication and interrupts the recipient
process to give new facts. However in a pull message the recipient
starts the communication and receives the data from a writing
process.
Here two modules are described. The MagicBoard is one of them. It
is an ordinary whiteboard which is augmented with a camera and
projector which allows the combination of physical information and
digital information on the board. The camera digitalizes the physical
information and observes the users. A menu and calculator are
projected on the board (applications). The users can use gestures to
run augmented commands, e.g. printing, copy-pasting, etc. The
MagicBoard components are: fast finger tracker, X-window system,
applications: calculators, menu,…
User Localization is another module that is going to be described
here. This module’s duty is to be aware of the users’ location in the
SmartOffice. To predict the users’ intentions the system must track
them constantly with cameras.
Regarding our project, we can use some information mentioned in
MagicBoard part. In MagicBoard the user can do the commands by real
gestures and in our project (game) we are going to apply this
capability to use laser spot as a real shooting gun. Also we can
utilize some aspects of the user localization module e.g. the user
(player) tracking on the game floor and detecting the sitting or
standing positions of the players as it is mentioned in activities
recognition technique part in the article.

Liting:
The article presents the SmartOffice, which uses a flexible resource-oriented integration protocol in order to anticipate the user’s activities to communicate useful information. The SmartOffice consists of two major modules: the MagicBoard and the user localization. The author claims that nowadays computers are not truly user friendly, because users must engage in an explicit oriented dialogue with the computer, instead of using more natural ways of interaction. The article states that computers should not involve a new way of working but augment the current working modes, which provides a natural and free interaction. For our project we are not using intelligent environment but a more natural exercising environment. The SmartOffice uses finger tracing system, however, we uses the similar principle of tracing laser point via camera. To use the laser tracing provides a more natural and free playing than simple using mouse and gamepad. While using user localization is reinforced by a predictive model. We can make a hypothesis that to improve more realistic, we should use predictive model to sense the position and distance of the player, which we assume that the game will be more intelligent and realistic like the real life.

Miao:
This article is talk about an intelligent environment called SmartOffice. There are two major modules involve with the SmartOffice: Magic Board and a user localization module. The Magic board is an ordinary white board and it integrates with the camera and video-projector which in order to sensor the action of the user and showing the result of the user’s action. The user localization module is used to guess user’s intentions. It is depends on the user’s action to guess what the user going to do in next step. And this article also mention that the computer should not involve with the user’s action and the environment has to smart understanding the user’s intention and action.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Reading Circle 2010-03/08

Date: 03/08-2010
Participants: Azadeh, Lian, Liting, Miao
Today's Tasks: Disscus the second paper, "Learning Spatial Event Models from Multiple-Camera Perspectives in an Intelligent Room"

Azadeh:

Lian:
This article talks about creating an Intelligent Environments (IE) system, which can track people in an intelligent room, whit mupit-cameras. The system combines the video streams of these cameras to creat a synchronous system which knows the invents occours in the room.
But this article is mainly focus on the multi-camera part. The cameras work in different levels and states, some ones work in the low-level to process the detailed areas such as face, while the global cameras work to detect if some invents occour in somewhere. But in our projects, our original idea is to use two independent cameras to detect the game projection and user`s position. But now we just use one camera, not muti-camera, so we don`t have to consider communication between cameras. Only we have to consider is how to avoid colour confusion and shadow.

Liting:
From this article, it stated that multiple-camera is commonly used for teleconferencing, which it needs to know who, gesture, motion, facial expression. Using multiple-camera encourages interacting naturally, which people do not need to worry about which direction they are facing or whether they stay in the field of the view. The example is illustrated from the article that is using the multiple-camera in the human’s normal life. The cameras are placed into the environment, such as on the shelf, on the TV, on the table, etc. People might not be aware the cameras. However, for our project, we are going to provide a dark room to play the game, which is easy to be aware that the cameras existence in the environment. From human’s cognition, people may be cognitive that he/she has to stand in the front of the camera, or for shy person that he/she may avoid to be captured by the camera. The author states that using multiple-camera provides much richer descriptions of human activities, which supports natural interactions. For our concept we only need to capture if the player is standing on or squatting down, and due the environment limitation, we have to consider about the color conflict, and shadow problem.

Miao:
This article describes an Intelligent Environments (IEs) that the system and environment can interact with people better. In this IEs, there are 6 cameras can detect the human’s actions and depends on user’s action to run some functions automatically. It is also talk about how to let different systems to share the same camera and how can those systems cooperation with each others.

Monday, March 1, 2010

Reading Circle 2010-03/01

Date: 03/01-2010
Participants: Azadeh, Lian, Liting, MiaoToday's
Tasks: Disscus the first paper, "Combining Audio and Video in Perceptive Spaces"

Lian: The main idea of the paper is to introduce a concept of interactive space, in which users can do something freely without any invasive equipments that users will directly touch, even observe. Here the author introduced some remote detect devices like camera or recorder or speaker or projector in one application. In another situation, user can sit in fount of a big screen and control some items. In all, the aim is to come up with more complex resolutions that are more robust and preciser.

Azadeh: This article with the title "Combining Audio and Video in Perceptive Spaces" is mostly about providing an natural interactive environment without utilizing any spatial devices or alien clothes . Users are easily able to act and have the natural movements without any limitations in this interactive space and see the feedbacks as projections on the screens. To implement such an environment just some cameras, a screen, a set of microphones and a desktop is required. I found this article’s contents so related to our project, since we are going to provide such an environment with cameras and projection screens and maybe sensors but we are not still sure about it. However we are going to provide a natural and interactive environment for our game according this article. We want the user (player) move and act in the game space freely and easily. Furthermore in this article some example projects are introduced which can be really helpful.Azadeh Navabi

April: The article recommend to ulitize passive sensors that avoid requiring special clothing and other unnatural objects to isolate the user from the environment. To be as natural as possible and to be as free as possible, it is better that the user could free to move and join into the game without caring about the instrumented hardware. Do not use invasive methods is significant all in all.

Miao: The main purpose of this article is talk about how to let the user free to interact with game or other systems. And it describes lots of nice examples of using camera in the real life instead of the invasive methods. So, the users do not need any equipment or wearable stuff and the system must be easily understood by any users.