This work regards fingertip contact detection and localization upon planar surfaces to provide interactivity in augmented displays implemented upon these surfaces, by projector-camera systems. In contrast to the widely employed approach where user hands are observed from above, lateral camera placement avails increased sensitivity to touch detection. An algorithmic approach for the treatment of the laterally acquired visual input is proposed and is comparatively evaluated against the conventional.

Today, many forms of art are influenced by the emergence of interactive technologies, including the mixing of physical media with digital technology for forming new hybrid works of art and the usage of mobile phones to create art projected on public spaces. Many artists and painters use digital technology to augment their work technically and creatively. In the same context many believe that the time of transition from traditional analogue art to postmodern digital art, that is, to an art grounded in codes rather than images has arrived. The research work described in this paper contributes towards supporting, through the use of Ambient Intelligence technologies, traditional painters’ creativity, as well as methods and techniques of art masters. The paper presents the design and implementation of an intelligent environment and its software infrastructure, to form a digitally augmented Art Workshop. Its practical exploitation was conducted in an Ambient Intelligence (AmI) simulation space and four feasibility studies were conducted. In each of these studies an oil painting was created following an alternative, yet accredited by artists, approach.

This poster describes the design and development of a comprehensive Museum Tour Guide mobile application that can be installed on user-owned devices. The purpose of the application is to provide museum visitors with a device that can improve their experience through optimised planning of their visit and an always-available stream of information regarding the museum and its exhibits. The main goals, the design, as well as the implementation of the application are described and the main functions of the application are presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn and further development ideas are discussed.

In this paper, a steerable, interactive projection display that has the shape of a disk is presented. Interactivity is provided through sensitivity to the contact of multiple fingertips and is achieved through the use of a RGBD camera. The surface is mounted on two gimbals which, in turn, provide two rotational degrees of freedom. Modulation of surface posture supports the ergonomy of the device but can be, alternatively, used as a means of user-interface input. The geometry for mapping visual content and localizing fingertip contacts upon this steerable display is provided, along with pertinent calibration methods for the proposed system. An accurate technique for touch detection is proposed, while touch detection and projection accuracy issues are studied and evaluated through extensive experimentation. Most importantly, the system is thoroughly evaluated as to its usability, through a pilot application that was developed for this purpose. We show that the outcome meets real-time performance, accuracy and usability requirements for employing the approach in human computer interaction.

This paper reports on the results of a user-based evaluation that was conducted on a 3D virtual environment that supports diverse interaction techniques. More specifically, the interaction techniques that were evaluated were touch, gestures (hands and legs) and the use of a smart object. The goal of the experiment was to assess the effectiveness of each interaction modes as a means for the user to complete common tasks within the application. A comparison is attempted in order to provide an insight to the suitability of each technique and direct future research in the area.

A visual user interface providing augmented, multitouch interaction upon a non-instrumented disk that can dynamically rotate in two axes is proposed. While the user manipulates the disk, the system uses a projector to visualize a display upon it. A depth camera is used to estimate the pose of the surface and multiple simultaneous fingertip contacts upon it. The estimates are transformed into meaningful user input, availing both fingertip contact and disk pose information. Calibration and real-time implementation issues are studied and evaluated through extensive experimentation. We show that the outcome meets accuracy and usability requirements for employing the approach in human computer interaction.

The theme of this paper is an exhibition of prototypical interactive systems with subjects drawn from ancient Macedonia, named "Macedonia from fragments to pixels". Since 2010, the exhibition is hosted by the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki and is open daily to the general public. Up to now, more than 165.000 people have visited it. The exhibition comprises 7 interactive systems which are based on some research outcomes of the Ambient Intelligence Programme of the Institute of Computer Science, Foundation for Research and Technology - Hellas. The digital content of these systems includes objects from the Museum’s permanent collection and from Macedonia.

This paper presents a computer vision system that supports non-instrumented, location-based interaction of multiple users with digital representations of large-scale artifacts. The proposed system is based on a camera network that observes multiple humans in front of a very large display. The acquired views are used to volumetrically reconstruct and track the humans robustly and in real time, even in crowded scenes and challenging human configurations. Given the frequent and accurate monitoring of humans in space and time, a dynamic and personalized textual/graphical annotation of the display can be achieved based on the location and the walk-through trajectory of each visitor. The proposed system has been successfully deployed in an archaeological museum, offering its visitors the capability to interact with and explore a digital representation of an ancient wall painting. This installation permits an extensive evaluation of the proposed system in terms of tracking robustness, computational performance and usability. Furthermore, it proves that computer vision technology can be effectively used to support non-instrumented interaction of humans with their environments in realistic settings.

This paper presents the application of the PaperView system in the domain of cartographic heritage. PaperView is a multi-user augmented-reality system for supplementing physical surfaces with digital information, through the use of pieces of plain paper that act as personal, location-aware, interactive screens. By applying the proposed method of reality augmentation in the cartographic heritage domain, the system provides the capability of retrieving multimedia information about areas of interest, overlaying information on a 2D or 3D (i.e., scale model) map, as well as comparing different versions of a single map. The technologies employed are presented, along with the interactive behavior of the system, which was instantiated and tested in three setups: (i) a map of Macedonia, Greece, including ancient Greek cities with archeological interest; (ii) a glass case containing a scale model and (iii) a part of Rigas Velestinlis’ Charta. The first two systems are currently installed and available to the general public at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Greece, as part of a permanent exhibition of interactive systems.

This paper describes the outcomes stemming from the work of a multidisciplinary R&D project of ICS-FORTH, aiming to explore and experiment with novel interactive museum exhibits, and to assess their utility, usability and potential impact. More specifically, four interactive systems are presented in this paper which have been integrated, tested and evaluated in a dedicated, appropriately designed, laboratory space. The paper also discusses key issues stemming from experience and observations in the course of qualitative evaluation sessions with a large number of participants.