Parking lot design by interactive computer graphics

An Interactive Computer Graphics Parking (ICG-PARK) Program which provides an efficient way to design parking lots is described. Using ICG-PARK program, composite pictures of the system can be generated by computer graphics quickly and accurately. The modification or redesign of such pictures can be done easily through interactive display systems.

The area under study is initially drawn with fixed objects. The user can then proceed to any desired subroutine by using the interactive capabilities of the system. The length, direction of row(s) of parking spaces and the dimension of the parking stalls are given by the user each time through the interactive device when a parking stall drawing subroutine is called. Row(s) of parking stalls are drawn on a subpicture. When attached to the cross cursor, it can be moved to the desired location. The approximation of a curve can be drawn by calling the curve drawing subroutine recurrently. The design vehicle minimum turning path curve is provided, and can be used to check the adequacy of the aisle, entrance, and exit layout. The CRT screen can be erased either entirely or partially and redrawn at any time. Finally, a hardcopy of a satisfactory parking lot layout plan can be obtained through the plotter.     

Affective preference measurement of product appearance based on event-related potentials

The product appearance plays an important role in users’ purchase decision, while the emotions elicited by the product appearance are subtle, low intensity and not easy to obtain. Event-related potentials (ERPs) can reflect people’s psychological activities and effectively identify the characteristics of brain’s affective process. In the present study, the affective preference measurement of humidifier appearance was conducted based on the theory of affective design and event-related potentials. Firstly, the collected humidifier pictures were screened to be the experimental stimuli through multidimensional scaling analysis and cluster analysis. During the affective preference measurement experiment, the participants were asked to judge the affective preference level (liked vs. neutral vs. disliked) of humidifier pictures with the mouse button clicking (left, middle, right), and the electroencephalograph signals were recorded at the same time. ERPs results showed that the frontal and central N1 and frontal, frontal–central and central late positive potential can be taken as the indexes to measure participants’ affective preference of humidifier appearance. In conclusion, the participants’ affective preference level of humidifier appearance can be measured by ERPs. The experiment results can be used to guide product design, by measuring the brain activities of different prototypes at the phase of product development we can roughly infer which one is the user preferred or not preferred.     

KidReporter: a user requirements gathering technique for designing with children

This paper describes a design method, novel to the domain of interaction design, for gathering user requirements from children called the KidReporter method. The KidReporter method was chosen and further refined based on assumptions about User-Centred Design. The method was considered to be suitable and appealing for children in terms of participating in design. Two school classes participated in making a newspaper about a zoo, to gather requirements for the design process of an interactive educational game. The educational game was developed to educate children about animals while walking through a zoo. The KidReporter method's main strengths are that it combines many techniques for eliciting information from children, such as interviews, drawing and making pictures. In this paper we describe how the KidReporter method was applied, in what manner it was successful and what we would do differently next time.     

A dialogue system for creating and manipulating graphical symbols and structures

Conventional higher level programming languages have not been designed for effective application to the kind of problems which arise in interactive computer graphics. In order to correct this, efforts have been made to use conversational languages or to design command languages which allow the user to interact with the system via light buttons or teletype.This paper describes a conversational system — called DIGS — using a keyboard-oriented language. The language enables the user to construct models step-by-step with a minimum of typing effort. Intermediate results (graphic or non-graphic) may be controlled at each point of the construction process.The purpose is to provide a tool for easily creating and editing fairly complex symbols as well as hierarchic pictures. Data can be associated with the picture parts and relationships defined between them.     

User‐Assisted Video Stabilization

We present a user‐assisted video stabilization algorithm that is able to stabilize challenging videos when state‐of‐the‐art automatic algorithms fail to generate a satisfactory result. Current methods do not give the user any control over the look of the final result. Users either have to accept the stabilized result as is, or discard it should the stabilization fail to generate a smooth output. Our system introduces two new modes of interaction that allow the user to improve the unsatisfactory stabilized video. First, we cluster tracks and visualize them on the warped video. The user ensures that appropriate tracks are selected by clicking on track clusters to include or exclude them. Second, the user can directly specify how regions in the output video should look by drawing quadrilaterals to select and deform parts of the frame. These user‐provided deformations reduce undesirable distortions in the video. Our algorithm then computes a stabilized video using the user‐selected tracks, while respecting the user‐modified regions. The process of interactively removing user‐identified artifacts can sometimes introduce new ones, though in most cases there is a net improvement. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our system with a variety of challenging hand held videos.     

基于终端监控的仪器管理系统服务器设计与实现

针对高校实验室科研仪器存在的种类繁多、使用人员流动性大、仪器地点分散等情况,设计了一个采用C/S架构的仪器监控管理系统。系统终端采用ARM架构的嵌入式处理器,通过霍尔电流传感器检测其所监控的仪器的电流变化情况,将仪器状态、使用人的卡号以及非法操作的报警照片实时地通过网络发送给服务器,同时应用网络数据库技术设计了实验室监控仪器网上查询列表,实现了可在网页直接地查询当前各个房间的仪器使用情况、任何时间段的使用记录信息和所有时间段的报警记录照片以及实验室仪器的预约。     

Animation Using Temporal Constraints: An Overview of the Animus System

Algorithm animation has a growing role in computer-aided algorithm design, documentation, and debugging, because interactive graphics is a richer channel than text for communication. Most animation is currently done laboriously by hand, and it often has the character of canned demonstrations with restricted user interaction. Animus is a system that allows for easy construction of an animation with minimal concern for lower-level graphics programming. Constraints are used to describe the appearance and structure of a picture as well as how those pictures evolve in time. The implementation and support of temporal constraints are substantive extensions to previous constraint languages that had only allowed for the specification of a static state. Use of the Animus system is demonstrated in the creation of animations of dynamic mechanical and electrical circuit simulations, sorting algorithms, problems in operating systems, and geometric curve drawing algorithms.     

云应用管理引擎的设计与实现

介绍了云应用管理引擎的设计思想与实现方式,以解决传统上应用程序必须安装在本地才能运行的问题.云应用管理引擎对安装在Windows或Linux应用服务器上的应用程序进行管理,在集群范围或服务器范围内将应用程序发布为远程应用,并将远程应用授权给用户.授权用户可以从各种客户端设备和系统运行交付给自己的远程应用程序,就像运行本地应用程序一样.     

PiSHi: click the images and I tell if you are a human

This paper introduces pictorial intelligent system for human identification (PiSHi), an image-based captcha which uses three human cognitive abilities to distinguish humans from machines. The first is the human ability to easily recognise the image’s upright orientation. The second is the human brain’s ability in recognising a picture’s content when it is only partially visible. And the third is the human ability in unconscious decision making when encountering pictorial challenges. This work models such complicated human patterns in problem solving for the first time. In order to extract these behavioural patterns and save them in a pattern database, we have implemented our own captcha and performed a series of experiments. PiSHi’s interface presents the user with a set of distorted pictures and asks her to click on the upright orientation of all the pictures in any preferred order. Next, it captures the user’s interaction patterns, compares them with the ones saved in the pattern database, and grants her a corresponding credit. Based on this credit, the user either passes or fails the test, and participates in updating the picture database. Our experiments indicate that human users can solve our proposed captcha effectively—with an accuracy of 99.44 %. Besides, our proposed system is secure against several types of attacks including random guessing and reverse image search engines. The results offer the possibility of utilising the identified human behavioural models in practical captchas.     

Design Strategies for Idle Screens of Smartphones Based on Service Usages

Linking specific smartphone services to user characteristics can inform design guidelines and improve the competitive edge of smartphone models. A key component in the design of the user interface is the idle screen, as it is the starting point for all smartphone services. The focus of this study is to elicit insights for establishing strategies for improving idle screen design by relating user behaviors and smartphone services. Benefit segmentation is employed for users’ responses to questionnaire items about service usages. Smartphone services are identified through a factor analysis and user segments are obtained by a cluster analysis. The findings can contribute to classifying smartphone services according to users’ behaviors and preferences for them and to suggesting a design alternative for idle screens, depending on the features of user groups for improved market segmentation.     

An interactive data visualization system

GRAFANA is an interactive program, which allows the user to produce drawings based on data stored on a disk file. The major advantage and originality of the system is that the user can interactively determine the visual effect of a drawing and immediately see it on the screen. Moreover, any drawing produced by GRAFANA can still be edited by a generalpurpose graphics editor. This system allows the user to obtain precisely the right drawing for any book, paper or report. GRAFANA has been implemented in MIRA-2D, a graphical Pascal extension. It is available for different machines and kinds of graphical devices.     

Graph visualization techniques for web clustering engines

One of the most challenging issues in mining information from the World Wide Web is the design of systems that present the data to the end user by clustering them into meaningful semantic categories. We show that the analysis of the results of a clustering engine can significantly take advantage of enhanced graph drawing and visualization techniques. We propose a graph-based user interface for Web clustering engines that makes it possible for the user to explore and visualize the different semantic categories and their relationships at the desired level of detail     

A general-purpose software measurement tool

A software measurement tool designed for the users of PRIME, an interactive system being developed, is presented. The tool, called SMT, allows its user to instrument a program, modify a pre-existing instrumentation and specify how the collected data are to be reduced by typing in a few simple commands. The user can also write his own measurement routines, which specify the actions to be taken at event detection time, and submit them to the SMT; after checking their correctness, the SMT deals with them as with its built-in, standard measurement routines. The design goals of a general-purpose tool like the SMT are discussed, and the prototype version of the tool, which has been implemented, is described from the two distinct viewpoints of a user and of a measurement-tool designer. An example of the application of the prototype to a measurement problem is illustrated, the reasons why not all of the design goals have been achieved in the implementation of the prototype are reviewed, and some of the foreseeable extensions of the SMT are described.     

An Example‐based Approach to Synthesize Artistic Strokes using Graphs

In this paper, we propose a technique to produce artistic strokes in a variety of drawing material based on example images. Our approach is to divide example strokes scanned from images into small pieces along their stroke directions and synthesize a novel stroke by rearranging them along a user specified curve. The visible quality of a synthesized stroke can be maintained by utilizing the connectivity information stored in a directed graph constructed in the preprocessing step. At run‐time, the graph is traversed to find a path best matching the user specification given as a curve and additional information. The results of our experiments shows that visually convincing strokes of various materials can be generated efficiently.     

Towards standardisation of user models for simulation and adaptation purposes

The use of user models can be very valuable when trying to develop accessible and ergonomic products and services taking into account users’ specific needs and preferences. Simulation of user–product interaction using user models may reveal accessibility issues at the early stages of design and development, and this results to a significant reduction in costs and development time. Moreover, user models can be used in adaptive interfaces enabling the personalised customisation of user interfaces that enhances the accessibility and usability of products and services. This paper presents the efforts of the Virtual User Modelling and Simulation Standardisation ‘VUMS’ cluster of projects towards the development of an interoperable user model, able to describe both able-bodied and people with various kinds of disabilities. The VUMS cluster is consisted by the VERITAS, MyUI, GUIDE, and VICON FP7 European projects, all involved in user modelling from different perspectives. The main goal of the VUMS cluster was the development of a unified user model that could be used by all the participant projects and that could be the basis of a new user model standard. Currently, within the VUMS cluster, a common user model has been defined and converters that enable the transformation from each project’s specific user model to the VUMS user model and vice versa have been developed enabling, thus, the exchange of user models between the projects.     

环流式旋风除尘器设计软件的开发

对于旋风除尘器的设计主要依靠手工计算进行，其过程繁琐且难以保证其准确性。针对旋风除尘器设计的特点，利用Visual Basic 6．0及AutoCAD工具开发了一个环流式旋风除尘器设计软件CycloneDraw。通过该软件用户只需输入操作条件，即可得到旋风除尘器的结构简图。该软件具有设计计算、数据库查询、生成设备图等功能。用户界面友好、操作方便、运行可靠稳定。     

Drawing with constraints

The success of constraint-based approaches to drawing has been limited by difficulty in creating constraints, solving them, and presenting them to users. In this paper, we discuss techniques used in theBriar drawing program to address all of these issues. Briar's approach separates the problem of initially establishing constraints from the problem of maintaining them during subsequent editing. We describe how non-constraint-based drawing tools can be augmented to specify constraints in addition to positions. These constraints are then maintained as the user drags the model, which allows the user to explore configurations consistent with the constraints. Visual methods are provided for displaying and editing the constraints.     

Sketching space

In this paper, we present a sketch modelling system which we call Stilton. The program resembles a desktop VRML browser, allowing a user to navigate a three-dimensional model in a perspective projection, or panoramic photographs, which the program maps onto the scene as a “floor” and “walls”. We place an imaginary two-dimensional drawing plane in front of the user, and any geometric information that user sketches onto this plane may be reconstructed to form solid objects through an optimisation process. We show how the system can be used to reconstruct geometry from panoramic images, or to add new objects to an existing model. While panoramic imaging can greatly assist with some aspects of site familiarisation and qualitative assessment of a site, without the addition of some foreground geometry they offer only limited utility in a design context. Therefore, we suggest that the system may be of use in “just-in-time” CAD recovery of complex environments, such as shop floors, or construction sites, by recovering objects through sketched overlays, where other methods such as automatic line-retrieval may be impossible. The result of using the system in this manner is the “sketching of space” — sketching out a volume around the user — and once the geometry has been recovered, the designer is free to quickly sketch design ideas into the newly constructed context, or analyse the space around them. Although end-user trials have not, as yet, been undertaken we believe that this implementation may afford a user-interface that is both accessible and robust, and that the rapid growth of pen-computing devices will further stimulate activity in this area.     

Managing design ideas with a shared drawing tool

The generation of design ideas in group discussion is a complex and dynamic process. The fluent expression of ideas and the ability to interact and build on representations created by others contributes significantly to the process. When group members are separated by physical distance, the fluency of this process is interrupted. Computerized shared drawing tools re-establish this fluency. Such tools need to aid not only the drawing process, but also the management of design ideas during the process. The paper lays the groundwork for the design of the idea management portion of a shared drawing tool. It presents a list of group idea management behaviours and identifies user requirements in support of these activities. A prototype shared drawing system is described which attempts to incorporate the user requirements into an interface design. The paper then presents the results of a usability study conducted on the prototype. The interface performed miserably, but the study provided support for the user requirements and gave detailed insight into how a shared drawing interface should be designed.     

Interactive evolution of equations for procedural models

This paper describes how the evolutionary mechanisms of variation and selection can be used to evolve complex equations used by procedural models for computer graphics and animation. An interactive process between the user and the computer allows the user to guide evolving equations by observing results and providing aesthetic information at each step of the process. The computer automatically generates random mutations of equations and combinations between equations to create new generations of results. This repeated interaction between user and computer allows the user to search hyperspaces of posible equations without being required to design the equations by hand or even understand them. Three examples of these techniques have been implemented and are described: procedurally generated pictures and textures, three-dimensional shapes represented by parametric equations, and two-dimensional dynamical systems described by sets of differential equations. It is proposed that these methods have potential as powerful tools for exploring procedural models and achieving flexible complexity with a minimum of user input and knowledge of details.