Category Archives: Research

Vection field:ベクション場による歩行誘導手法

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  Along public pathways, visual signs and audio cues are used by pedestrians to guide them into forming smoother pedestrian flows. However, often ignored or neglected, these signals require greater pedestrian attentiveness and appropriate conscious effort. To solve this problem, we have proposed the concept of “vection field”. This is a field of optical flow that cues movement according to a pedestrian’s motion. Visual stimulus within this optical flow leads pedestrians innately in specific directions without requiring direct interventions. We have implemented such a field by covering the ground with a lenticular lens screen; in this setup, neither power supply nor position tracking of pedestrians is necessary. An experimental result from

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Ego-motion analysis:運動計測システムの開発

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In this paper, we present a new method to perform ego-motion analysis using intensity averaging of image data. The method can estimate general motions from two sequential images on pixel plane by calculating cross correlations. With distance information between camera and objects, this method also enables estimates of camera motion. This method is sufficiently robust even for out of focus image and the calculational overhead is quite low because it uses a simple averaging method. In the future, this method could be used to measure fast motions such as human head tracking, or robot movement. We present a detailed description of the proposed method, and experimental results demonstrating its basic

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Lip Interface:くちびるインタフェース

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母音発声時の口唇形状は古くからインタフェースとして着目されており，その認識・応用手法について研究がなされてきた．しかしその多くは福祉を念頭においた発話認識や機器操作のためのインタフェースであり，エンタテインメントへの利用は少ない．人間は幼児期より，唇を発話のみならず食事や感情表現など様々な場面で動かしており，その形状の自由度は極めて高いと考えられる．そこで本研究では，任意の口唇形状を，エンタテインメントのためのインタフェースとして利用することを目指す．本発表ではまず口唇の開閉をインタフェースとして作成したエンタテインメントシステムについて報告する．

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Bidirectional Finger Braille Device:双方向型指点字デバイス

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This study is development of bidirectional finger braille device for deaf-blind people. Finger braille is one of tactual communication media for deaf-blind people; the utterer superimpose his/her hand on listener’s hand and tap listener’s index, middle and ring finger. See finger braille as a means of interpersonal communication, the finger braille device should be able to exchange the role of utterer and listener dynamically and useful for daily life. So we propose a wearable finger braille device with speakers. In this paper, we carried out experiment about the way of input-output on speakers. It was shown that speakers are reasonable for input-output element. 指点字とは，視聴覚障害者のためのコミュニケーション 手段の一つである．この指点字では，発話者が受話者の左 右それぞれの示指・中指・薬指の上に自らの指を重ね，両 手各指を点字の各点に見立て直接叩くことで点字と同様 の表現が可能となっている．近年では感情の表現・伝達の 可能性が指摘されており，より高度なコミュニケーション 手段であることが伺われる．一方で，会話のためには直

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STRAVIGATION(A Vibrotactile Mobile Navigation): 探検的観光支援に関する研究

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Exploration-like sightseeing is wandering around an unfamiliar place, and is a way of seeing sights and enjoying novel experiences that are not mentioned in guidebooks. However, the fear of getting lost prevents tourists from engaging in exploration-like sightseeing. Current navigation devices are capable of providing effective routes to specific places, which is not compatible for this mode of sightseeing. This is because tourists tend to focus on the recommended route displayed on the device and follow it faithfully. This prevents tourists from seeing surrounding sights. Here, we propose a new navigation method called stravigation. Stravigation is a vibrotactile mobile navigation for the tourist to be able to enjoy exploration-like sightseeing.

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