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ALIVE

 

   figure245
Figure: Chris Wren playing with Bruce Blumberg's virtual dog in the ALIVE space

The last of the gesture-language mappings is the most abstract. Again, it's related to the other gesture-languages discussed above, and the primary distinction lies in a subtle, but important, difference in the design of the interface. Best called ``gesture in context'' this mapping attempts to create an interface that is intuitive given the context. Ideally, the mapping is aligned so that failures in tracking or classification are transparent to the user. Clever mapping design can thus greatly reduce the need for sensor systems to perform flawlessly by playing off the expectations and socialization of the user. Because of that trait, this was the first system to be implemented in our lab, in the form of the Artificial Life Interactive Virtual Environment (ALIVE).

ALIVE combines autonomous agents with an interactive space. The user experiences the agents (including hamster-like creatures, a puppet, and a well-mannered dog--Figure 11) through a ``magic-mirror'' idiom. The interactive space mirrors the real space on the other side of the projection display, and augments that reflected reality with the graphical representation of the agents and their world (including a water dish, partitions, and even a fire hydrant).

The ``magic-mirror'' paradigm is attractive because it provides a set of domain constraints which are restrictive enough to allow simple vision routines to succeed, but is sufficiently unencumbered that is can be used by real people without training or a special apparatus.[13]

One agent the user can interact with in ALIVE is a puppet that tries to act like a small child. The user can interact with the agent using certain hand gestures, which are interpreted in the context of the particular situation. For example, when the user points away and thereby sends the puppet away, the puppet will go to a different place depending on where the user is standing. If the user waves or comes towards the puppet after it has been sent away, this gesture is interpreted to mean that the user no longer wants the puppet to go away, and so the puppet will smile and return to the user. In this manner, the gestures employed by the user can have rich meaning which varies on the previous history, the agents internal needs and the current situation. [13]


next up previous
Next: Conclusion Up: Perceptive Spaces Previous: DanceSpace

Christopher R. Wren
Thu Jul 10 10:04:10 EDT 1997