Music,dimensions and play: composing for autonomous laptop musicians and improvising humans

Abstract

This article discusses three compositions for autonomous laptops performing with improvising musicians. The laptops were programmed with software environments that make narrow-band ‘decisions’ regarding performative soundscapes. They also made ‘decisions’ about visual materials that were presented as onscreen scores for the human improviser to consider. The unfolding aural and visual streams were both functional and creative, and highlighted the here-and-now of indeterminate composition, whilst carefully embedding the aesthetics of the composer within the core of the programming. As such, these laptops were considered as collaborating performers and collaborating composers. The opening section highlights the connecting principles within this collection of works, before discussing each in isolation. This is placed within the context of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first- century composition, whilst offering a framework, for the reading of these, based on Deleuze and Guattari's rhizome philosophy. Three Last Letters is then used as a case study of the concept of wholeness within the computer-generated soundscapes and the algorithmic programming. Section 3 draws together several theories surrounding the mental seeing evoked by sound into dimensionality: a playground for inventive HCI-music improvisation. The values and principles with which the humans and computers interact is developed using creative play theory, followed by some personal responses of the musicians. Finally, an evaluation is offered on the effect on the audience and their perceptual modes when experiencing live and fluid compositions of this nature. The article is concluded with a poetics of experience from the composer's perspective.     

《人机交互》课程的教学探讨与实践

随着人们对人机交互技术的重视程度的提高,越来越多的学科专业将《人机交互》课程列为专业的必修课或选修课。在总结近些年的《人机交互》课程教学实践中的经验教训的基础上,依据《人机交互》课程的特点,从教学内容、教学方法与手段、实践教学等方面,对该课程的教学进行初步的探讨与实践,并就如何提高课程教学质量提出一些可操作性强的建议。     

Makeup Lamps: Live Augmentation of Human Faces via Projection

We propose the first system for live dynamic augmentation of human faces. Using projector‐based illumination, we alter the appearance of human performers during novel performances. The key challenge of live augmentation is latency — an image is generated according to a specific pose, but is displayed on a different facial configuration by the time it is projected. Therefore, our system aims at reducing latency during every step of the process, from capture, through processing, to projection. Using infrared illumination, an optically and computationally aligned high‐speed camera detects facial orientation as well as expression. The estimated expression blendshapes are mapped onto a lower dimensional space, and the facial motion and non‐rigid deformation are estimated, smoothed and predicted through adaptive Kalman filtering. Finally, the desired appearance is generated interpolating precomputed offset textures according to time, global position, and expression. We have evaluated our system through an optimized CPU and GPU prototype, and demonstrated successful low latency augmentation for different performers and performances with varying facial play and motion speed. In contrast to existing methods, the presented system is the first method which fully supports dynamic facial projection mapping without the requirement of any physical tracking markers and incorporates facial expressions.     

A probabilistic model for state sequence analysis in hidden Markov model for hand gesture recognition

The role of gesture recognition is significant in areas like human‐computer interaction, sign language, virtual reality, machine vision, etc. Among various gestures of the human body, hand gestures play a major role to communicate nonverbally with the computer. As the hand gesture is a continuous pattern with respect to time, the hidden Markov model (HMM) is found to be the most suitable pattern recognition tool, which can be modeled using the hand gesture parameters. The HMM considers the speeded up robust feature features of hand gesture and uses them to train and test the system. Conventionally, the Viterbi algorithm has been used for training process in HMM by discovering the shortest decoded path in the state diagram. The recursiveness of the Viterbi algorithm leads to computational complexity during the execution process. In order to reduce the complexity, the state sequence analysis approach is proposed for training the hand gesture model, which provides a better recognition rate and accuracy than that of the Viterbi algorithm. The performance of the proposed approach is explored in the context of pattern recognition with the Cambridge hand gesture data set.     

柴油机虚拟维修训练系统的设计

在分析柴油机结构性能特点的基础上,基于模块化设计思想,结合实际维修训练应用的需求,研究了柴油机虚拟维修训练仿真平台的实现过程,包括虚拟样机三维模型的建立、碰撞检测及交互控制方法设计等内容,构建了基于EON虚拟平台的桌面式虚拟维修训练系统。结果表明,该系统能够明确地指导参训人员完成柴油机维修保养训练任务,具有良好的交互性和操作性。     

TP347 H在生物质锅炉过热器气相条件下的腐蚀特性(Ⅱ)

模拟生物质锅炉过热器区的气相条件以及过热器管壁沾灰状况,在500～600℃范围内对奥氏体不锈钢TP347H进行了腐蚀试验研究.通过测定试样的增重量,得出了腐蚀动力学曲线;利用配有能谱分析仪的扫描电镜和X射线衍射仪,对试样腐蚀后的形貌结构、元素含量和腐蚀产物的组成成分进行了分析.结果表明,当试片表面存在生物质灰时,TP347H的腐蚀速率比无灰大大增加;沾有生物质灰的TP347H对反应温度非常敏感,随着反应温度的增加,TP347H的抗腐蚀性能逐渐降低.     

An improved HCI degradation model for a VLSI MOSFET

An improved hot carrier injection (HCI) degradation model was proposed based on interface trap gen-eration and oxide charge injection theory. It was evident that the degradation behavior of electric parameters such as I_(dlin), I_(dsat), G_m and V_t fitted well with this model. Devices were prepared with 0.35μm technology and different LDD processes, I_(dlin) and I_(dsat) after HCI stress were analyzed with the improved model. The effects of interface trap generation and oxide charge injection on device degradation were extracted, and the charge injection site could be obtained by this method. The work provides important information to device designers and process engineers.     

基于蓝牙HCI实现单片机与PC间无线通信

介绍了蓝牙技术及其HCI(主机控制器接口),并基于HCI协议规范给出了一种单片机C8051F120与PC之间的无线通信方案.单片机通过UART控制爱立信蓝牙模块ROK 101 008,PC通过USB控制蓝牙适配器,实现两端无线数据传输.此方案不仅可以用来进一步开发蓝牙高层协议和应用,而且它本身也可作为独立的无线通信模块应用到多种场合.     

Believable interaction with a quasi‐tangible tabletop interface

In this paper, we present a believable interaction mechanism for manipulation multiple objects in ubiquitous/augmented virtual environment. A believable interaction in multimodal framework is defined as a persistent and consistent process according to contextual experiences and common‐senses on the feedbacks. We present a tabletop interface as a quasi‐tangible framework to provide believable processes. An enhanced tabletop interface is designed to support multimodal environment. As an exemplar task, we applied the concept to fast accessing and manipulating distant objects. A set of enhanced manipulation mechanisms is presented for remote manipulations including inertial widgets, transformable tabletop, and proxies. The proposed method is evaluated in both performance and user acceptability in comparison with previous approaches. The proposed technique uses intuitive hand gestures and provides higher level of believability. It can also support other types of accessing techniques such as browsing and manipulation. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.