Portuguese Meeting on Computer Graphics 2006
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Portuguese Meeting on Computer Graphics 2006 by Issue Date
Now showing 1 - 20 of 37
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Above and Beyond: Outer Space as a Metaphor for Document Browsing and Visualization(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Gonçalves, Daniel P.; Bilo, Luís; Gonçalves, Daniel; Fonseca, Manuel J.; Jorge, Joaquim A.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséCurrently, any ordinary user has hundreds or even thousands of electronic documents stored on his computer. Usually, those documents are archived using an hierarchically-organized file system, making their retrieval at a later time a difficult task. In this paper we present a novel approach for document browsing and visualization based on the Outer Space metaphor. While users ”travel” from galaxies to planets and their satellites, the search criteria become narrower eventually allowing users to find their documents. With our approach, users can find a specific file in no more than four clicks. We developed a preliminary prototype, using a user centered approach, through the development of low-fidelity prototypes and heuristic evaluations.Item Cognitive walkthroughs in the evaluation of user interfaces for children(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Mano, Alexandre; Campos, José Creissac; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséThis paper describes a case-study, dealing with the application of the cognitive walkthrough as a method of evaluating an interface built for children. We performed the walkthrough and tested the interface with children aged between 5 and 7 years old. Given our goals and the scope of this study, the cognitive walkthrough proved as a reliable source of indications about usability problems on an interface aimed at children.Item Engaging Virtual Agents(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Iurgel, Ido A.; Marcos, Adérito F.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséEmbodied virtual assistants normally don't engage the user emotionally. They fulfil their functions, e.g. as shopping assistants or virtual teachers, factually and emotionless. This way, they do not explore the full potential of the presence of an embodied character. In real life, the personality of the teacher or salesperson, their ability to involve and even to entertain is essential for their success. But how much of these “soft factors” can be translated into behaviour of virtual agents? Which kinds of virtual personalities are appropriate for which group, and in which context? We call virtual agents with engaging “soft skills” Engaging Virtual Agents. This paper presents a software platform employed for experimenting with soft skills and for creating different personalities of virtual agents. The focus of this platform is on authoring principles that facilitate the cooperation of content creators and computer scientists. We also present “Julie”, an example that was shortly concluded as part of a research project commissioned by SAP AG. Julie is a virtual sales assistant that employs actively emotional expressions and narrative techniques, in order to provide additional motivation for the customer to visit and to remain at the virtual shop.Item Usability in Virtual and Augmented Environments: A qualitative study(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Pimentel, Angela; Dias, Paulo; Huussen, Frank van; Horst, Pauline van der; Baggerman, Jan-Willem; Bidarra, Rafael; Madeira, Joaquim; Santos, Beatriz Sousa; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséVirtual and Augmented reality are developing rapidly: there is a multitude of environments and experiments in several laboratories using from simple HMD visualization to more complex and expensive 6-wall projection, CAVEs, and other systems. Still there is not yet a clear emerging technology in this area, nor commercial applications based on this technology are used in large scale. In addition to the fact that this is an emerging and relatively recent technology, there is little work to validate the utility and usability of these Virtual and Augmented environments when compared with traditional desktops. However, usability evaluation is crucial in order to design better systems that respond to the users' needs, as well as for finding applications that can really gain from the use of these new technologies. In this short paper, we present a preliminary qualitative usability study of a Virtual and Augmented Reality environment under development at the University of Aveiro. The main goal is to find clues on how to develop better evaluation methods for systems based on AR/VR technologies.Item Information Visualization Attributes and Operators for a Web Log Based Management System(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Zamfir, Florin; Mealha, Óscar; Santos, Beatriz Sousa; Nunes, José; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséThis paper presents the theoretical basis of a web log based management system used for research purposes. The main focus is related with information attributes and operator definitions used for information visualization analysis and manipulation. Web sites and portals are becoming complex organic systems difficult to monitor usage patterns and control navigational and structural problems. In many day to day routines, severe inefficient and ineffective situations are ignored or understood a little too late. The system mentioned in this paper represents a research framework with the goal of solving information and communication management problems in a web site/portal, using an information visualization approach, with direct manipulation adjustment and problem identification mechanisms. Although the specific contribution of this paper is theoretical, some system usage screenshots were added to clarify the purpose of some attributes, definitions and operators.Item Evaluating an Activity-centered Ubiquitous Computing Framework for User Assistance in Public Spaces(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Pinto, Helder; José, Rui; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséThis paper describes a ubiquitous computing framework for supporting activities that are strongly associated to a specific physical environment and that are performed by occasional visitors. Our framework implements an activity-centered approach to ubiquitous computing, by defining a conceptual model inspired by Activity Theory and implementing a software infrastructure derived from this conceptual model. The framework has been evaluated from the user view-point by experiments run at different public spaces. We are proposing to perform an additional experiment with the framework, providing user assistance to Interacção 2006 participants and organizers.Item Engenharia Reversa de Sistemas Interactivos Desenvolvidos em Java2/Swing(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Silva, João Carlos; Campos, José Creissac; Saraiva, João; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséA manutenção e evolução de sistemas interactivos dá origem a problemas importantes que afectam a sua eficiência e eficácia. Neste trabalho pretende-se combinar programação funcional, programação estratégica, code slicing e modelos com semˆantica formal na tentativa de fortalecer a tese de que a aplicação destas metodologias e tecnologias, em conjunção com um processo de engenharia reversa de código fonte, permite melhorar significativamente o suporte á manutenção de sistemas interactivos.Item Desenvolvimento de uma Aplicação para a Visualização de Sessões de Hidrocinesioterapia(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Carvalho, Elizabeth S.; Marcos, Adérito F.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséA hidrocinésioterapia ou fisioterapia aquática constitui um conjunto de técnicas terapêutiicas fundamentadas no movimento humano dentro da água. De forma a maximizar a eficiência da execução, monitorização e avaliação dessas sessões terapêuticas é necessário recorrer a um fato aquático específico, que o paciente veste, provido de sensores electrónicos, que permitem registar e monitorar os movimentos natatórios durante a sessão de tratamento. Nesse ponto surge a necessidade de desenvolvimento de uma aplicação que seja capaz não só de armazenartoda a informação recolhida através dos sensores, mas principalmente implementar uma forma conveniente de monitorização gráfica com base na sua visualização clara, intuitiva e concisa, seja em tempo real ou a posteriori, que funcione como auxiliar de diagnóstico e acompanhamento para o terapeuta. Este artigo apresenta uma aplicação em desenvolvimento para a visualização mencionada.Item Desenho de um Sistema de Recolha de Estatísticas para o Boccia(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Alexandre, Luís; Fontes, Gonçalo; Cavaco, Nelson; Garcia, Luís; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséNeste artigo apresenta-se o desenvolvimento de uma aplicação para o registo em tempo real de estatísticas de jogo para o Boccia, um desporto praticado essencialmente por pessoas com necessidades especiais. O recurso a técnicas de desenvolvimento de sistemas interactivos como a análise de tarefas, a prototipagem e a continua avaliação das propostas de desenho, quer através do recurso a regras e princípios de usabilidade, quer através do feedback dos utilizadores revelou-se extremamente importante na concepção do sistema. Com este artigo os autores pretendem partilhar a sua experiência na aplicação destas técnicas assim como na utilização de plataformas computacionais móveis no desenvolvimento destes sistemas interactivos.Item Avaliação de Interfaces Multimodais para Livros Falados Digitais com foco Não Visual(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Duarte, Carlos; Chambel, Teresa; Simões, Hugo; Carriço, Luís; Santos, Eduardo; Francisco, Guilherme; Neves, Sérgio; Rua, Ana Catarina; Robalo, João; Fernandes, Tiago; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséEste artigo apresenta um estudo de avaliação de interfaces multimodais para Livros Falados Digitais, tendo em conta diversos tipos de utilização, inspirados quer por diferentes características dos utilizadores quer pelas situações de uso. São apresentados: uma análise de trabalhos relevantes na área e requisitos a ter em conta; o Rich Book Player, um dispositivo de reprodução de livros falados digitais, multimodal e adaptativo; e um estudo de usabilidade das suas funcionalidades e capacidades de interacção, com ênfase em aspectos não visuais.Item ATM Enhanced Acessibility for Disabled Persons: A Study of Time Limits(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Lopes, João Brisson; Pereira, Leonor Moniz; Cordeiro, António Raposo; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséThis paper presents an accessibility study carried out to determine the most appropriate timeout values that allow users with disabilities to use ATM terminals to carry out banking operations. The paper describes the methodology applied to the study which consisted of a questionnaire phase, followed by a test phase which took place in an ATM test bed from which recommendations were drawn. This study addressed the diversity of problems presented by users with visual disabilities (low vision and blindness), motor disabilities (wheelchair, assistive walking devices and limited dexterity) and intellectual disabilities.Item On the road to Rich Digital Books(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Lopes, Rui; Duarte, Carlos; Simões, Hugo; Carriço, Luís; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséThis article presents an architecture for producing rich digital books. These are books enriched with supporting media, like images and sound, to reach broader audiences and enlarge their usage possibilities. The architecture is based on automating the books' production process, increasing their availability. It also enjoys a high flexibility degree, allowing the production of books that can be read either with off-the-shelf software or specialized digital book players. One such player, capable of meeting the demands of active reading is also presented in this article.Item Supporting Group Analysis in Psychotherapy(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Carriço, Luís; Sá, Marco de; Duarte, Luís; Reis, Tiago; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséPsychological therapy for pathologies such as depression, anxiety, among others, often leads patients to group therapy sessions, where patients and therapists interact and share their experiences. Besides including the challenges that are present in any kind of meeting settings, psychotherapy, for its critical health scenario, presents difficulties that have not yet been approached by currently used groupware. This paper introduces a system, which uses mobile devices and a large public screen, to support group therapy sessions. It encompasses a variety of functionalities that provide both therapists and patients with necessary means to enhance and fulfil their particular tasks during and between sessions.Item IVY Trace Visualiser(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Sousa, Nuno Miguel Eira de; Campos, José Creissac; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséNo contexto do projecto IVY, tem vindo a ser desenvolvida uma ferramenta de modelação e análise de sistemas interactivos, tendo em vista a detecção de potenciais problemas de usabilidade no início do desenvolvimento de um qualquer sistema interactivo. Quando uma dada propriedade em análise não se verifica, a ferramenta procura indicar um contra-exemplo: um comportamento do modelo que demonstre a falsidade da propriedade em questão. Estes contra-exemplos, no entanto, podem atingir tamanhos consideráveis, dependendo da complexidade do mode-lo, o que dificulta a sua análise. De forma a facilitar essa análise, a arquitectura da ferramenta IVY prevê um componente de suporte à análise. Este componente visa, através de representações visuais e de mecanismos de análise, facilitar a compreensão dos contra exemplos, de forma a tornar mais claro qual o problema que está a ser apontado e possíveis soluções para o mesmo. Este artigo apresenta o componente de análise da ferramenta IVY. São apresentadas a arquitectura do componente, as representações implementadas e os mecanismos de análise disponibilizados.Item Bridging the Gap Between Real and Electronic Documents(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Marin, Renata; Guerreiro, Tiago; Gonçalves, Daniel; Jorge, Joaquim A.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséIn the area of Personal Information Management, researchers try to cope with problems arising from the large amount of personal electronic information users have to deal with nowadays. Part of that information are the users' documents. It is difficult to retrieve documents that have been written weeks or months ago, as existing systems provide little or no clues to their whereabouts. However, it is often the case when a printed version of a document is available, and the users want to find the corresponding electronic document. That printed version should be enough to make the retrieval possible. We describe how RFID tags were used to solve that problem, by allowing an automatic association between electronic and paper versions of the same document. Our solution is part of the Quill system, a narrative-based document retrieval interface. Quill allows stories about documents to be told and used to find the documents they describe. With the use of RFID technology, it is now possible to mention information about real-world documents in those stories. Furthermore, Quill maintains a knowledge base in which information about the users and their activities is stored. The synergies between that information and the one collected with the help of RFID tags allow new use scenarios to be supported.Item UML no Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Interactivos(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Campos, José Creissac; Ribeiro, António Nestor; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséOs processos típicos de análise e modelação de sistemas numa perspectiva de engenharia de software atribuem pouca importˆancia á modelação da camada interactiva. O Unified Process e a linguagem que o suporta (UML) não são excepção. Este artigo propõe uma abordagem, que procura integrar a modelação da camada interactiva no processo de modelação típico baseado em UML, explorando as potencialidades fornecidas pela linguagem.Item Online Communication in a Multimedia Course(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Rentróia-Bonito, Alexandra; Martins, André; Guerreiro, Tiago; Fernandes, Vitor; Jorge, Joaquim A.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséCommunication is a critical component of human interaction in order to satisfy basic human needs. This is especially true in technology-supported learning environments, where establishing multiple communicational channels between instructors and students is a requisite to enhance learning. Therefore, specific intervention strategies are required to effectively adjust each channel to satisfy students' communication needs while learning. However, not all online communication channels achieve the goal of including students into their learning communities. Thus, designers should understand what works best in facilitating effective communication and learning. The bottom line lies in how to foster online communication and what impact it may have on effective learning. This paper aims at exploring student use of asynchronous and synchronous communication tools, namely fora and chat tools, and their participation within a technology-supported Multimedia course. We present ongoing research results related to this specific issue, together with implications for designing b-learning experiences, lessons learnt and future work. By this we aim at contributing to understand the impact of online communication tools on student behavior and learning results.Item Interior Design Tool for Common Users(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Ferreira, Alfredo; Medeiros, Roberto; Barreto, Rui; Fonseca, Manuel J.; Jorge, Joaquim A.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséUntil recently, computer simulation of interior decoration was reserved to architects and other highly skilled professionals, because existing tools require technical knowledge on computer aided design. During the last years, several easy-to-use tools for home planning and interior design have been released. These tools intend to allow users, without specific skills, to create their virtual house, decorate it and navigate in the resulting scenery. In this paper we present three of these applications and describe task analysis using them. As a result of this experiment, we identify user requirements for this kind of tools, along with positive and negative aspects, providing good insights and directions for future work.Item Controlo Miográfico de Dispositivos Móveis para Tetraplégicos(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Guerreiro, Tiago João Vieira; Jorge, Joaquim A.; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséEste artigo apresenta a Electromiografia como uma interface para controlo de dispositivos móveis por tetraplégicos. Apesar de existirem actualmente várias tecnologias que possibilitam o controlo de computadores pessoais por parte de indivíduos com esta patologia, o mesmo não se reflecte num contexto móvel. Observando este panorama, é urgente aumentar as capacidades desta população neste contexto, possibilitando maior autonomia e consequente aumento comunicativo. Apresenta-se o trabalho realizado, que contempla um protótipo para controlo do ambiente de trabalho através de contracções musculares, e o trabalho futuro, cujas fases essenciais são a migração da aplicação para um dispositivo móvel e avaliação com utilizadores representativos da classe alvo do sistema.Item Pesquisa de Imagens na Web: Estudo de Usabilidade(The Eurographics Association, 2021) Matos, Paulo Pombinho de; Afonso, Ana Paula; Chambel, Teresa and Nunes, Nuno and Romao, Teresa and Creissac Campos, JoséOs utilizadores de sistemas de pesquisa de imagens na Web expressam as suas necessidades através de interro- gações que descrevem as imagens pretendidas. A análise detalhada destas interrogações e a observação do comportamento dos utilizadores na utilização destes sistemas são aspectos fundamentais não só para a compre- ensão das necessidades dos utilizadores, mas também para facilitar o design de sistemas de pesquisa de ima- gens. A maioria dos estudos tem abordado apenas a análise de pesquisas genéricas na Web sendo escassos aqueles que observam o comportamento dos utilizadores na pesquisa de informação multimédia na Web. Este artigo descreve o estudo que envolveu a análise das interrogações e a observação dos utilizadores na utilização de sistemas de pesquisa de imagens na Web. A análise dos resultados revelou que os utilizadores preferem efec- tuar pesquisas textuais e utilizam em média 1,9 termos por pesquisa. O recurso a outros métodos de especifica- ção da pesquisa (por esboço ou imagem exemplo) apenas é utilizado em caso de insucesso do método textual. O resultado do estudo permitiu ainda extrair as principais implicações no design de interfaces para sistemas de pesquisa de imagens na Web. Com base nestes indicadores foi realizado um protótipo da interface de pesquisa de imagens na Web.