New Computing environments such as Wearable computing are appealing. One of the characteristics of them is that computers are embeded in our life. Degitazation of personal experiences would be made possible by constant recording using wearable video cameras. It is perceivable that the amount of video contents would be exceptionally enormous. In order to organize these contents to facilitate browsing and search, appropriate structural organization as well as effective and speedy editing tools are desired. In this paper, we attempt to develop “Wearable Imaging System” that is capable of constantly captureing data not only from wearable video camera, but also from various kinds of sensors such as brainwave analyser, GPS, gyro sensor. And these data from sensors are appropriately processed to achieve efficient video retrieval and browsing.

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This paper describes a basic research on the management system of real-world media information using a cellular phone and a wearable computer. We have employed a Java-capable cellular phone and wearable interface devices to build everyday office-object management system for bridging the real-world and digital-world. The user can search and register documents, books, and other physical media in the real workspace by providing keywords, location and schedule information through the interfaces that communicate with the repository server on the network. Evaluation experiments were conducted to investigate the usability and the difference between the two interfaces.

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-This paper describes the development of interface for navigating the deaf-blind with a wearable computer and the development of the positioning system using active RFID tags. The former is designed to communicate with the computer by finger braille, which is one of the communication methods of the deaf-blind. We made two prototypes, vibration motor type and solenoid type. And the latter was chosen in order to navigate the deaf-blind smoothly in the place where other positioning systems cannot work. We evaluated the system which consists of the wearable finger braille interface and position detection using RFID tags. We report this wearable interface and RFID tags positioning system.

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We have developed a prototype model of virtual reality training environment with an exercise bicycle in front of the display. To increase rehabilitation training motivation and keep the constant motor load, we have tried to incorporate this system into a virtual human. This paper reports how to find the optimum condition for running speed(δv) of the virtual human and renewal time(δt) of changing its speed.

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Genome science researchers hope to be able to analyze and grasp whole gene expression data to understand the system in a cell. We developed a visualization tool for gene expression data, using pathway information. The significant feature of the tool is that integrats biological information as spacial. Using this tool with Immersive Projection Display(IPD), it is easy for grasp of the whole system in a cell and evaluating the change of gene expression data between samples. We think that more biological information is integrated by this tool and help us more understanding about a cell.

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This paper presents electron cloud’s metamorphosis in real-time, which can be controlled by direct manipulation of molecular bonds along a given path. The mixed state between a pair of volume data is approximately properly rendered in real-time. A set of discrete volume data is generated when a part of a molecular bond is moved along a certain path, beforehand. This generates an electron state in any position along the path and realizes seamless display. To realize manipulation more freely, large amounts of volume data have to be used. Volume data is drawn as a set of piled texture images for real-time processing in the rendering process. We have investigated the maximum amount of texture images that can be ran in real-time with typical graphic cards.

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The rendering cost of the VR space can be reduced efficiently by selecting appropriate fineness of the shape for the observing distance without loss of drawing quality. We proposed a multiscale modeling method that controls the fineness of the shape locally by dividing space to octree model. Though Marching-Cubes method is known as the way of forming patches in octant, there is a problem that a crack is created between the adjoining patches when the class level of them are different. In this paper, we describe an efficient and inconsistent surface patching method without any additional procedure like the crack-stitching method.

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This paper presents a method of interactively generating natural hand animation using reduced dimensionality from multiple captured data sequences of finger motions conducting specific tasks. This method is achieved by introducing an estimation with multiple regression analysis. Even when the skeletal structure of the user who inputs the motion is different from that of the shape model in the computer, the motion that a user imagines is generated. Moreover, by introducing a real-time recognition of hand motions with DP matching, the user is able to conduct multiple finger motions one after another. This method enables us to make input devices that require minimal user training and computer calibration, and helps to make the user interface intuitive and easy to use.

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By using pictures, we can construct a photo-realistic virtual world, such as virtual city space. In this paper, we show the way how to extract information, which are necessary for constructing a photo-realistic world, from pictures and maps, and the way how to construct virtual city space from those information.

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In this paper, we propose a new approach to building a scalable virtual environment by combining virtual sub-environments. To manage different types of users interaction, datasets, rendering methods, and soforth, we build and handle virtual sub-environments separately. To unify these sub-environments, we propose a use of an environment manager, which determines the users viewpoint of sub-environments according to the user’s input, and compose display image from rendered images of them. By using the proposed methodology, we can combine sub-environments seamlessly, and build a virtual environment to manage different types of datasets, users interaction and rendering methods. By unifying sub-environments according to the user’s viewpoint, we can construct a universal large-scale environment: the user can walk through cities, observe from above the earth, and fly through the solar system.

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In distributed shared virtual space, we need to have awareness controled and offered smoothly for realization of a natural and effective system. Benford has defined “aura” which controls the quantities of awareness according to the distance between avators. But if we calculate all avators’ aura in the virtual space, it is difficult to offer awareness smoothly because of the huge amount of calculation. If we restrict the quantity of awareness which can be treated simultaneously, it is not guaranteed that awareness is offered from a nearer avator although we can reduce the calculate time. In this paper, we propose the aura calculation based on mesh approach. In this approach, we can reduce the calculation time by dividing virtual space into mech and making search area smaller. We can also offer awareness from a nearer avatar by the turn of the searcing mesh. At the last of this paper, we evaluate the validity of this approach.

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Recently, research on wearable Non-grounded force display is carrying out. We propose a small and lightweight force display, for the component engineering of Parasitic Humanoid(PH). This display outputs a torque using rotational moment and mechanical breaks. We test the effectiveness of this force display through experimentation and suggest design guidelines.

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This paper describes development of a haptic display that displays 3D shape in real environment using an air-balloon array. The device employs many small balloons arranged by cubic array. It enables user whole palm interaction; not only touch virtual objects but also to hold them. We developed a balloon control unit that control the volume of the balloon and evaluated it. Then we constructed a balloon array using 5 control units and created some sample shapes of virtual object.

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Authors have been developing a system in the configuration that use the wearable small projector, retro-reflective material as a screen and infrared light source and camera, to be a feasible configuration in the actual application environment. The screen performed the multiplexed three roles: (1) as the visual output (display), (2) the user handles the screen and screen’s position and orientation is measured using an infrared camera, (3) bright backlight to achieve the clear fingertip image as input. In this paper, a ray-tracing simultion method is applied to develop the efficient infrared light source using LEDs.

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This paper describes the development of new locomotion interface device called ’Seated Walker 2’. The ’Seated Walker 2’ reproduces the walk sensation by a translational movement of the chair. By adding parallel link mechanism that converts the rotational movement around the waist to the translational movement of the chair, we succeeded in minimizing the size of the device. In this paper, we solved the relationship between the rotational movement around the waist and the translational movement of the chair and showed the way to control our new device. We also evaluated the performance of the ’Seated Walker 2’.

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In this paper, the authors propose the operational time lag reduction method that is caused by remotely movable cameras whose pan, tilt and zoom parameters can be controlled. It temporarily caches the image data that is sent from the movable cameras being able to operated from remote PCs. This is achieved by cutting out and presenting of the cached images until the result of the operation from remote PC is reflected on the CRT. The authors applies simplified spherical mapping for correction of image distortion that is caused by cutting out. It plans securing of the real time and the reduction of sense of incongruity of remote operation.

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TNG (Telexistence Next Generation) is a technical concept that enable two men placed other space to be together and work together virtually in same place. In this paper, we describe about implementation of a high-existence display system, which is a step to accomplish a TNG System. And discuss about components of TNG system and devices. In this trial system, a operator can see the real image of the remote cooperator’s body and face on the surface of a master-slave robot. By using HMP(Head-Mounted Projector), torso-shaped robot and robot screen, not only the operator feel to exist in the cooperator’s side, but also cooperator feel as if there EXIST the operator.

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This paper reports about omni-directional stereoscopic images on a spherical immersive display. The display has an advantage that the direction of binocular disparity is constant. We examined basic performance of stereoscopic viewing of this display. Then we implemented and examined the method which enables us to generate stereo images without tracking of viewer’s direction.

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Effects of disparity information specifying the 3D shape of an object were investigated in the experiment with three posture conditions (facing front, ling face up, and looking up with seating a chair). Subjects were asked to judge whether a cylindrical surface presented as random dot stereogram appeared elongated or flattened. The results indicated that depths of cylinders were underestimated and there is no systematic difference among three posture conditions. Finally, we calculated scaling-distances from the data and compared the scaling-distances with the distances reported by mean of direct magnitude estimation.

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It is known for binocular stereoscopic vision that the kind of disparity and the size of the amount of disparity will in°uence at time until perceiving the depth after uniting. Similarly, the kind of disparity and the size of the amount of disparity are considered to in°uence also time taken to unite. That is, it is thought that as the quantity of disparity is small, so the time taken to find and unite a correlated point becomes short and when there is no disparity among both eyes, the time required in order to unite becomes the shortest.. Then, this research examined what thing it was with the “stimulus without disparity” for a binocular stereoscopic system, especially the subsystem that searches for a correlated point. As a stimulus that does not have disparity among both eyes, random-dot distributed on a geometric horopter side, random-dot distributed on an experical horopter side, and random-dot distributed on a fronto-parallel plane side, were assumed and the time characteristic when detecting the correlated point of each RDS was investigated. The experiment was conducted in dark using the Wheatstone type stereoscope. Random-dot-stereogram of the curved surface described previously and the dummy stimulus which includes a uncorrelated point which cannot be united as distractor were shown together up and down to the subject, and the stimulus which can be united carried out forcible selection of either. Consequently, it checked that the time when detecting the correlated point of RDS distributed on a geometric horopter side became the shortest.

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A cast-shadow occurs on a floor when an object occludes illumination fromabove. It is known that, in two-dimensional picture, this shadow has important role for depth perception between the object and the floor. Here, we investigated the interaction of perceived depths by binocular cues(binocular disparity and vergence) and cast-shadow. The results rejected the winner-take-all model where binocular cues override cast-shadow, andindicated that both can work for depth perception. To account well for the data, we adopted modified linear combination model for light source directions which subjects assume. They are significant knowledge not only gor bringing visual processing of depth perception into the open, but also for making three-dimensional computher graphics.

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