REALITY SHOW
OR TRUSTABLE IMPOSTORS ?
Alex Garcia-Alonso
University of the
Basque Country
Outline
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Research environment
Reality show or trustable impostor
Recent research activities
Your input & discussion
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Research environment
• Basque Country
– 4 Universities (90,000 students)
– 12 Tech research centers (2,200 labor force)
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
@ CEIT (1982-1995)
• Technological Research Center
• App. Mechanics Dpt. : comp. graphics
– FEM : pre- post-processing
– Interactive 3D visualization
• Mechanisms analysis
• Dynamics …
– Collision analysis (RT mechanisms) …
• Working for different companies
– European Space Agency
– MDI (Mechanical Dynamics Inc, Ann Arbor MI)
– EADS …
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
@ Univ. of the Basque Country (1996- )
• Teaching !!!
• Technological Research centers
– CEIT (258 Labor staff)
• University of Navarre
– Ikerlan (230 Labor staff)
• MCC Cooperative group 250 companies -- 83,600 labor force
• 44% Basque Country 37% Spain 19% international
– Labein (356 Labor staff)
– Vicomtech
– EUVE …
• Spin-offs
www.landersimulation.com
+VR
www.simtechniques.com
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Research environment
U. of the Basque Country
U. of Navarre
CEIT Vicomtech
U. of Deusto
Labein
100 miles
diameter
MCC – Ikerlan
U. of Mondragon
Bilbao
San Sebastian
Mondragon
Vitoria
EUVE
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
SKILLS research network
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Multimodal Interfaces for
CEIT
capturing and Transfer of Skill
Labein
Aalborg University
Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique - Laboratoire d'Intégration
des Systèmes et des Technologies (CEA LIST)
DLR - Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics
Fraunhofer Institut für Graphische Datenverarbeitung
HAPTION
KUKA Roboter GmbH
OMG plc
PERCRO, - Italy [coordinator]
Queen's University of Belfast
Simonazzi S.p.A.
Technion - Israel Institute of Technology
UM1 - University Montpellier-1
University of Tampere
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
ENACTIVE research network
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Labein
Learn by doing
CEIT
Scuola Superiore Sant'anna,
PERCRO
Queen's University of Belfast
Institut National Polytechnique de
Grenoble
University of Exeter
Lunds Universitet
Université Technologique de
Compiègne
Uppsala Universitet
Institute of Robotik und
Mechatronik
Hasselt University
Faculty of Music, McGill Univ.
University of Minnesota
• Max-Planck Gesellschaft zur
Foerderung der Wiss. E.V.
• Université de Genève
• Ecole Polytech. Fed.
Lausanne
• Università Degli Studi Di
Padova
• Sony France
• Ecole des Hautes Etudes en
Sciences Sociales
• Assoc pour la Création et la
Recherche Outils
d'Expression
• Centre National de la
Recherche Scientifique
• Université Montpellier-1
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
CEIT
CEIT
Fraunhofer IIS
Erlangen
Pisa
Stanford U.
U. Southern
California
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Labein
Queen’s University
of Belfast
University of Ottawa
Labein, Bilbao
MIT, Boston
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Recent activities
• P2P visualization & NURBS (2000-02, U.
Basque Country)
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Collisions in mech. Assembly (2001-05, CEIT)
Occlusion culling (2003-07, CEIT)
Improving haptic perception (2006---, CEIT)
Collaborative haptics (04-07, Labein)
Avatars (04---, Vicomtech)
Learning Procedural Skills : link IA & VR
(07---, U. Basque Country - U. Navarre)
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Let us go to the past :1986
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Outline
•
•
•
•
Research environment
Reality show or trustable impostor
Recent research activities
Your input & discussion
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Reality show or trustable impostor
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Applications
Users, costumers
Reality show ?
Impostors : interface contract
Trustable impostors everywhere
Great Expectations
– Consumer haptics
– Networked haptics
• Summing up
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Applications
• Research
– Physic based research
– Application oriented research
• Physics and Maths are the basis of research
• Science must also appreciate Applications :
– Appraise applied science and engineering !
– Steer knowledge to a good application !
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Applications : spreadsheets
• David Alan Grier (1979)
– “This machine has everything you can find on a
real mainframe: multiprocessing, report
generators, Cobol. If it were only a small
mainframe, there would be no reason to get it,
because it is as slow as bad plumbing. However, it
has one piece of software. This, my friend, is a
spreadsheet and it is going to change the world.
Without spreadsheets, these machines are
nothing. With spreadsheets, they are
unstoppable.” (source, Computer, sept 2007, pg 6)
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Applications & users
• Windows interface metaphor
– Xerox
– Apple
– Users
• Apps target user domains of different size
– Specific domains (training, simulation, modeling, … )
– Broad domains (Consumer oriented : games, “desktop”
I/F, co-presence, …)
• Always
– pleased users are the key for successful
applications
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
A personal experience :
discovering customers
• A sad story : ADAMS/Real -Time Kinematics
• 1994 : 3 weeks from CEIT to MDI
– Jeff Cooper (MDI, Mechanical Dynamics Inc, Ann Arbor MI)
• The happy one : ADAMS/Animation
– I learnt a new point of view : “customers” (users)
– 2-3 K licenses
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
… (discovering customers)
• Both applications (“products”) were :
– Easy of use
– Quite good “cost / performance” ratio
– So, … why this success difference?
• ADAMS/Animation
– conquered users’ expectations
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
REVIMA
(developed at CEIT)
• 2000-04 Collaboration with CEIT
– Installed & used successfully
– However, it did not replace the space mouse (haptic
competitor)  desk is more comfortable
www.donnarosenartists.com
– IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications Dec. 2004
– “Minority Report” Steven Spielberg 2002 film
artist Dale Rutter
www.ceit.es
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Reality Show ?
• Is the realism of visual or haptic rendering
the key for success ?
• Who generates the most “realistic” images ?
– Sony’s Playstation 3 ?
– Microsoft’s Xbox 360 ?
– Nintendo´s Wii
 clearly, doesn’t
• So, why did the Wii succeed ? …..
– Why do users enjoy more the Wii ?
– The Wii conquered users unconscious wishes
– How ?
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Impostors lead the Wii to success
• Does the Wii replicates reality ?
• Games for the Wii : Trustable Impostors
– An impostor “replaces” something
– Replaces a real : golf club, baseball bat, bowling ball, racket
– Users trust (accept) their behavior
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Impostors : replacement restrictions
• There is not an absolute replacement
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Impostors can be used to achieve some goals
They do not replace playing grounds
These are not flaws, they are an Interface Contract
Impostors are accepted “as they are”, because they fulfill
users' expectations
Insertar FOTO juego real
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Trustable Impostors everywhere
• Real time Computer Graphics:
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Fluid flows
Cloth
Faked shadows and reflections
Herd motion
Lighting
Vegetation
• Simulation
– Gravity used to fake acceleration
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
… ( Trustable Impostors everywhere )
• Haptic systems
– Deformable environments : body tissue
– Comfortable inspection
– Pseudo-haptics
• Impostors everywhere :
– Models “substitute” (real) entities
– Algorithms “substitute” physical laws
• Mathematical formulations
• Heuristics
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Interface Contract for haptic systems
• Impostors are conditioned by hardware
specifications, models and algorithms.
– Stiffness (mechanical apps)
– Force limits (weight, tighten, push, ...)
– Position precision
• Haptic systems require interface contract
– Conditions of use (usability domain)
 analyses must be performed !!!
– Perception
– Skills achievement
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
90’s Great Expectations : 3D Visualization
• 1991 : Jim Clark (Silicon Graphics)
– “He also made some interesting predictions for the
low end. He described the multimedia machine of
the future as a device integrating the capabilities
of (1) full 3D, interactive, real-time computer
graphics, (2) full motion video, (3) image
processing capabilities, (4) fully integrated
geometric text, and (5) full compact-disc digital
sound. He predicts that this will be available in a
portable notebook-sized device with motion
sensors in the next five to ten years for under
$5,000.” (Source: Neville Holmes, Computer, sept 2007, pg 11)
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Great expectations : consumer haptics
• A haptic device as spread and affordable as the
Wii or the GPU ?
– 3 dof seems available
– 6 dof and multipoint devices are further away
• Which performance ?
– Usability domain
• Which user expectations will they be able to
fulfill ?
 Which applications should be developed ?
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Great expectations : networked haptics
• Feb. 2007 : Sipping beers with Jarek Rossignac
Q-collaborative haptics ?
That’s OK.
But … which is its use ?
A- Mechanical assembly …
(Jarek : skeptical glance)
A- feel mutual contact …
(Jarek : keen glance)
• Co-presence awareness
– Toast, handshake,
– Mutual contact …
– Feel physical presence in the collaborative working
environment
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Reality show AND trustable impostors
• We must discover unconscious users’ expectations
– And fulfill them
• “Reality” must be defined by an Interface contract
– Users must trust (accept) app. behavior
 Conditions of use must be well specified
 Perform more perception and skills achievement analyses
• Cheap haptic devices make possible new challenges
– May new haptic based metaphors replace the desktop ?
– Can haptic devices outperform the mouse ?
– Which I/F mechanisms can increase co-presence awareness ?
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Outline
•
•
•
•
Research environment
Reality show or trustable impostor
Recent research activities
Your input & discussion
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Recent activities
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
P2P visualization & NURBS (2000-02, U. Basque C.)
Intell. tutors + 3D visualization (00-05, U. Basque C.)
Collisions in mech. Assembly (00-04, CEIT)
(1) Occlusion culling (03-07, CEIT)
(2) Collaborative haptics (04---, Labein)
Avatars (04---, Vicomtech)
(3) Improving haptic perception (06---, CEIT)
IA & VR : Learning Procedural Skills (06---,
U. Basque C. - U. Navarre)
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
(1) @ CEIT - Simulation group
Length 5.0 feet (1.5 m)
Radius 2.6 feet (0.8 m)
ITP supplies turbines to Rolls-Royce
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Multidisciplinar group on haptics
2004 : Comp Graphics Forum
Haptic 2007 : IEEE Int. Conf.
on Robotics and
response
Collision
+ Contact
data
Automation
Other
simulations
2008 : IEEE Trans. on
Control Systems
Technology
Control
Haptic design
& building
2004 : IEEE Comp
2008 : Computer Animation
and Virtual Worlds
Image
generation
Graph & APP
USER
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Occlusion culling : environment
• Virtual environment
– Many objects
– Objects not far from eye
– Low occlusion
• Cannot use
– Conventional LOD
– “Background texture” replac.
 Improve occ. cull.
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Occlusion culling : learnt experiences
• Many coherence mechanisms analyzed
– Using most of them
– Surprisingly stereo (eye2eye)
coherence did not improve
performance … why ?
• Low occ. scenes 40%
– Speed ups achieved
• OC as a LOD mechanism 
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Occlusion culling : learnt experiences
• OC as a LOD mechanism
– image relevance
– Occlusion ratio :
• visible pixels / projected pixels
– A new GPU query is required
– GPU can be easily extended
Occlusion Ratio scheme
if ( Occlusion_Ratio < threshold &
visible pixels
< 0.15% drawing area )
then draw simplified object
else draw object normally
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
(2) @ Labein
• Collaborative Assembly Simulator
• Labein (Spain) & Queen’s University Belfast
USER QUEEN’S
USER LABEIN
HAVE’2007Chapel
, Ottawa,
Hill,Oct.
Oct.13-14
23rd
Learnt experiences
• Collaborative haptics (each user holds one object)
[ Collaborative ≠ Cooperative two users hold the same object ]
– Independent interaction  similar to visualization
– Dependent interaction
• Collisions  co-presence
• Assembly : constraints, network  haptic response
– Experiments : Labein - Queen’s U. Belfast
– P2P & Scalability
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Current research : motion prediction
• Local haptic (not networked)
– 5 years ago : 40ms/frame – coll. computing
– Where will be the object when the collision
computations are done ?
– Free movement vs. contact movement
instabilities ?  stiffness dependent ?
– Currently 2-3ms.  no relevant
• Collaborative haptics (50-200ms delays)
– promising
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
(3)
@ CEIT
• Improving haptic perception
– Surface discontinuities (edges, holes, thin
elements, …)
 oscillations
– Surface normal
– Penetration
– Contact point
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd
Your input & discussion
Thanks for your attention
Muchas gracias
Eskerrik asko (Basque language)
Donostia
Saint Sebastian
Chapel Hill, Oct. 23rd