Choreography is an embodied and complex creative process that often relies on ‘co-imagining’ as a strategy in generating new movement ideas. Technology has historically been used as a tool to augment creative opportunities in choreographic process, with multiple choreographic support tools designed to function as a ‘blank slate’ for choreography. However, few of these tools support creative authoring with interactive or generative components. Cochoreo is a sub-module for generating body positions as keyframes that catalyze creative movement, as part of the movement sketching tool idanceForms (idF). Cochoreo catalyzes movement sketching by using parameters from Laban Movement Analysis, an existing movement framework, to generate unique keyframes that are used as seed material for choreographic process. idF is a creativity support tool that engages with choreographers’ creative movement process by design. This paper presents the design of Cochoreo and evaluations from our pilot study with university dance students.

While mobile authoring applications are proliferating, choreographic tools that support the generation and transformation of user-created movement `samples' are less readily available. iDanceForms is a novel mobile choreographic application that generates unique movement choices through a camera stillframing technique to provoke movement catalysts. In keeping with the principles of whole body interaction (and principles of `defamiliarization'), the design of iDanceForms supports opportunities for surprise, unexpected movement choices and meaning-making. This paper presents data collected from an observational study of choreographers using iDanceForms. In the study we found that choreographers appropriated the intended functionality of iDanceForms to create highly individualized and unexpected movement sequences. They found inspiration in exploring unexpected framing of form and content, which resulted in creative explorations that produced unique movement possibilities provided by the system. Drawing from our observations we discuss possible roles that sensor-enabled mobile devices could play in movement generation through personal meaning-making, creative choreographic strategies and discovery, and in provoking whole body interaction through principles of `defamiliarization' in the context of HCI.

Real Time Strategy (RTS) games are complex, often requiring modeling of economic behaviors to develop a successful game. The design process for developing such an RTS game usually involves designers developing rules and mechanics based on their intuition and then revising these rules over several successive iterations to ensure that the model works for the target market. For the past year, we have been collaborating with a game company (BlackBird Interactive Inc.) to create an economy model to assist in designing a game. BlackBird is developing a social multiplayer RTS game called HARDWARE. Our goal is to develop assistive technologies to allow designers to make informed decisions regarding their game mechanics. In this paper we discuss the approach we took and our method to validate it in future. In particular, we developed an innovative technique using simulation and behavior modeling to allow designers to better adjust and understand the game variables. In this paper we discuss the model and preliminary interactions with the design team to show the success of this model. Our model describes how the game economy should unfold in different dimensions. We considered several parameters for user behavior, including propensity factors (such as their tendency towards certain game activities). We then developed a simulation system using Matlab and Simulink which considers the developed parameterized mathematical model as input, and uses a stochastic Monte Carlo approach for running probability based equations. The system extracts an empirical distribution for each model output variable over time. These output variables can represent how the economy resources change for a specific class of users.

To utilize a “human-in-the-loop” simulation methodology to examine the impact of high-risk environmental contexts on perceptions of victimization risk.

The design and representation of time and space are important in any narrative form. Not surprisingly there is an extensive literature on specific considerations of space or time in game design. However, there is less attention to more systematic analyses that examine both of these key factors—including their dynamic interrelationship within game storytelling. This paper adapts critical frameworks of narrative space and narrative time drawn from other media and demonstrates their application in the understanding of game narratives. In order to do this we incorporate fundamental concepts from the field of game studies to build a game-specific framework for analyzing the design of narrative time and narrative space. The paper applies this framework against a case analysis in order to demonstrate its operation and utility. This process grounds the understanding of game narrative space and narrative time in broader traditions of narrative discourse and analysis.

This paper presents a social agent pedestrian model based on experiments with human subjects. Research studies of criminology and environmental psychology show that certain features of the urban environment generate fear in people, causing them to take alternate routes. The Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) strategy has been implemented to reduce fear of crime and crime itself. Our initial prototype of a pedestrian model was developed based on these findings of criminology research. In the course of validating our model, we constructed a virtual environment (VE) that resembles a well‐known fear‐generating area where several decision points were set up. 60 human subjects were invited to navigate the VE and their choices of routes and comments during the post interviews were analyzed using statistical techniques and content analysis. Through our experimental results, we gained new insights into pedestrians' behavior and suggest a new enhanced and articulated agent model of a pedestrian. Our research not only provides a realistic pedestrian model, but also a new methodology for criminology research. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Since the inception of the field, researchers in human figure animation have had an active interchange with those interested in representing and visualizing dance. In 1967 A. Michael Noll at Bell Labs and Merce Cunningham, the father of modern dance speculated independently about the possibility of creating dancing stick figures on a computer display.

Effects of self-regulated learning (SRL) have been investigated in a variety of contexts. In this research, we explore advanced learning technologies based on the information processing model of SRL in the context of structured programming. We conducted an experiment to study ways to enhance the use of programmers' working memory, to develop tactics to carry out task level activities during programming, and to learn how to program more effectively. The results of the experiment indicate that programmers who received SRL-based treatment outperformed programmers who did not receive the treatment. We argue that the infusion of SRL-based technological interfaces would have a positive influence on the performances in programming.

In this paper, we describe an empirical investigation of the utility of several perceptual properties of motion in information-dense displays applied to notification. Notification relates to awareness and how dynamic information is communicated from the system to the user. Key to a notification technique is how easily the notification is detected and identified. Our initial studies show that icons with simple motions, termed moticons, are effective coding techniques for notification and in fact are often better detected and identified than colour and shape codes, especially in the periphery. A subsequent experiment compared the detection and distraction effects of different motion types in several task conditions. Our results reveal how different attributes of motion contribute to detection, identification and distraction and provide initial guidelines on how motion codes can be designed to support awareness in information-rich interfaces while minimizing unwanted side effects of distraction and irritation.

The creativity and effectiveness of an animator can be enhanced with computer-based tools that incorporate knowledge about the problem being animated. This is particularly true of human figure animation, which is complex and has many degrees of freedom. Procedural systems that incorporate the knowledge directly into the algorithm are best suited to structured movements, which are often repeated whereas expert systems that reason on the basis of a knowledge base are best suited to more general and unstructured movement problems.This paper describes procedural movement generators for human locomotion and grasping. A few key parameters allow the animator to create a feasible movement pattern and additional movement attributes make it possible to customize the patterns to match the movement characteristics of the particular figure being animated. These procedural movement generators are being evaluated in the general purpose Life Forms system for human figure animation.

User interfaces to supervisory control systems are becoming unmanageably complex; operators are spending significant time and cognitive effort in managing the interface which impedes the tasks of managing the control system. We present a user interface technique for supervisory control systems which uses adaptive presentation to provide context-sensitive interface configuration with the goal of reducing this overhead. An evaluation was carried out to determine if and when this intelligent assistance is useful in typical supervisory control situations. We describe the methodology, discuss problems to resolve in future studies and present preliminary results. >

This paper explores the nature of creative composition particularly as it applies to dance, and describes the development of interactive computer based tools to assist the composer. The hierarchical nature of the composition process calls for an interface which allows the composer the flexibility to move back and forth between alternate views and conceptual levels of abstraction. COMPOSE, an interactive system for the composition of dance has been implemented on Silicon Graphics and Apple workstations. The user visually composes in space and in time using menus of postures and sequences. Paths can be edited and an animation of the dance composition allows the final result to be evaluated.

The two major difficulties which must be addressed in producing realistic human figure animation are related to the design of bodies and the specification of movement. Body models can be designed to any desired accuracy for a fixed stance but if the body is to move, a satisfactory way has to be found to automatically adjust the shape of the tissue around the joints. Most animation produced to-day uses kinematic movement specification and requires many hours of work by a skilled animator. Future developments will make use of knowledge of the dynamic properties of bodies and expert systems will automatically define feasible movement patterns. This paper summarizes work going on in this field and describes in more detail several projects at Simon Fraser University which address various aspects of the problem.