Sympathetic interfaces: using a plush toy to direct synthetic characters

ABSTRACT

We introduce the concept of a sympathetic inter$ace for controlling an animated synthetic character in a 3D virtual environment. A plush doll embedded with wireless sensors is used to manipulate the virtual character in an iconic and intentional manner. The interface extends from the novel physical input device through interpretation of sensor data to the behavioral brain of the virtual character. We discuss the design of the interface and focus on its latest instantiation in the Swamped! exhibit at SIGGRAPH 98. We also present what we learned from hundreds of casual users, who ranged from young children to adults.

References

1. 1.Blumberg, B. and Galyean, T. Multi-level Direction of Autonomous Creatures for Real-Time Virtual Environments. In Computer Graphics, SIGGRAPH '95, (Los Angeles, CA, August 1995), ACM Press, 47-54.
2. 2.Blumberg, B. New Dogs, Old Tricks: Ethology and Interactive Creatures. PhD Dissertation, MIT Media Lab, 1996.
3. 3.Druin, A. Building an Alternative to the Traditional Computer Terminal. Master' s Thesis, Media Laboratory, MIT, 1987.
4. 4.Fitzmaurice, G.W., lshii, H., and Buxton, W. Bricks: Laying the Foundations for Graspable User Interfaces, in .Proceedings of CHI '95 (Denver, CO, May 1995), ACM Press, 442-449.
5. 5.Frazer, Sir J. G. The Golden Bough. The MacMillan Company, New York, 1922.
6. 6.Glos, J. and Cassell, J. Rosebud: A Place for Interaction between Memory, Story and Self. In Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Cognitive Technologym Los Alamitos, CA, 1997.
7. 7.Hinckley, K., Pausch, R., Goble, J.C., and Kassell, N.F. Passive Real-World Interface Props for Neurosurgical Visualization, in Proceedings of CHI "94 (Boston, MA, April 1994), ACM Press, 452-458.
8. 8.Ishii, H. and Ullmer, B., Tangible Bits: Towards Seamless Interfaces between People, Bits and Atoms, in Proceedings of CHI '97, (Atlanta, GA, March 1997), ACM Press, pp. 234- 241.
9. 9.Maes P., T. Darrell, B. Blumberg, A. Pentland, The Alive System: Full-body interaction with Autonomous. Agents. In Proceedings of Computer Animation. '95 Conference, Switzerland. IEEE Press, April 1995.
10. 10.Paradiso, J., Hu, E. and Hsiao, K-Y. Instrumented Footwear for Interactive Dance. To be presented at the XII Colloquium on Musical Informatics, Gorizia, Italy, September 24-26, 1998.
11. 11.Rabiner, L.R. and Juang, B.H. Fundamentals of Speech Recognition. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, 19!)3.
12. 12.Strommen, E. When the Interface is a Talking Dinosaur: Learning Across Media with ActiMates Barney, in Proceedings of CHI '98 (Los Angeles, CA, April 1998), ACM Press, 288-295.
13. 13.Wilson, A.D. and Bobick, A.F. Nonlinear PHMMs for the Interpretation of Parameterized Gesture. Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, 1998.

Index Terms

• Human-centered computing

  • Human computer interaction (HCI)

• Information systems

  • Information systems applications

    • Decision support systems

      • Expert systems