Interactive 3D virtual assistants in AmI environments

The system is a framework which can be used by applications in ambient intelligence environments in order to provide assistance to users, either regarding interaction or the application itself.

The assistance is supplied by a virtual three dimensional agent and can be incorporated in a variety of devices, such as smart phones, tablets, televisions or projectors. The interaction of the user with the system is achieved through gestures, speech recognition and smart phone events.

The assistance of the agent can be represented through: a) user training to manipulate the interaction techniques of the system, b) tour guidance of the system, c) structured presentation of multimedia items and d) instant help in real time.

The assistance content is dynamic and every application provides its content in real time, making the system adaptable in different environments and systems.

The help from Bryan’s point of view is accomplished through speech, hand and leg gestures. The system supports interactive multimedia content such as video, image, audio, 3d models or text. The multimedia content is showed in a three dimensional projection screen and Bryan gives more information for every item on its side. There is a controller of the items that are presented in the projection screen for go to the next/previous image/video or play/pause/resume video or go to full screen mode for more details or rotate items in 3d space. The content can be multilingual such as Bryan’s speech voice, while the system’s volume can be turned off and subtitles are automatically enabled to provide the spoken information.

Tour guidance of an application is achieved through an interactive presentation of a list of explanatory elements. The tour is divided into chapters which the user can choose from a menu displayed at the side of the display.

Publications

Birliraki, C., Grammenos, D., & Stephanidis, C. (2015). Employing Virtual Humans for Interaction, Assistance and Information Provision in Ambient Intelligence Environments. In N. Streitz & P. Markopoulos (Eds.), Distributed, Ambient, and Pervasive Interactions – Volume 21 of the combined Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCI International 2015), Los Angeles, CA, USA, 2-7 August, pp. 249-261. Berlin Heidelberg: Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series of Springer