Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces Commons^™

Teaching Landscape Construction Using Augmented Reality, Arshdeep Singh

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the design, development, and evaluation of an interactive Microsoft HoloLens application that projects landscape models in Augmented Reality. The application was developed using the Unity framework and 3D models created in Sketchup. Using the application, students can not only visualize the models in real space but can also interact with the models using gestures. The students can interact with the models using gaze and air-tap gestures.

Application testing was conducted with 21 students from the Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning department at Utah State University. To evaluate the application, students completed a usability survey after using the ...

Designing Smart Applications Using Ar (Augmented Reality), Kimberly A. De La Santa

Publications and Research

Augmented Reality is rapidly developing in popularity because it brings elements of the virtual world, into our real world. Augmented Reality (AR) is a variation of Virtual Reality (VR). VR technologies immerses a user inside an imaginary environment. While immersed, the user cannot see the real world around them. In contrast, AR allows the user to see the real world, with virtual objects and information intertwined. Therefore, AR supplements reality and enhances the things we see, hear, and feel. This research project will implement a Web page that gives the user the opportunity to experiment with AR.

Improving The Efficacy Of Context-Aware Applications, Jon C. Hammer

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we explore methods for enhancing the context-awareness capabilities of modern computers, including mobile devices, tablets, wearables, and traditional computers. Advancements include proposed methods for fusing information from multiple

logical sensors, localizing nearby objects using depth sensors, and building models to better understand the content of 2D images.

First, we propose a system called Unagi, designed to incorporate multiple logical sensors into a single framework that allows context-aware application developers to easily test new ideas and create novel experiences. Unagi is responsible for collecting data, extracting

features, and building personalized models for each individual user. We demonstrate the ...

Dynamic 3d Network Data Visualization, Brok Stafford

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Monitoring network traffic has always been an arduous and tedious task because of the complexity and sheer volume of network data that is being consistently generated. In addition, network growth and new technologies are rapidly increasing these levels of complexity and volume. An effective technique in understanding and managing a large dataset, such as network traffic, is data visualization. There are several tools that attempt to turn network traffic into visual stimuli. Many of these do so in 2D space and those that are 3D lack the ability to display network patterns effectively. Existing 3D network visualization tools lack user ...

Procedural Generation And Rendering Of Ink Bamboo Painting, Yangyang He

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis describes an algorithm that generates various ink bamboo paintings. First, a completely procedural model is used to generate the geometric shape of bamboos. The model uses a grammar-like approach that recursively generates new parts of the bamboo in a randomized manner. The random parameters are bounded by rules that simulate the natural form of bamboo.

The structure of the bamboo is represented line segments with directions. Various ink stroke sprites of stalk, branch, or leaf shapes are mapped to line segments, using reverse mapping and bilinear sampling to eliminate aliasing effects. The sprites are mapped in different degrees ...

Usability Of Sound-Driven User Interfaces, Zachary T. Roth, Dale R. Thompson

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The model for interacting with computing devices remains primarily focused on visual design. However, sound has a unique set of advantages. In this work, an experiment was devised where participants were tasked with identifying elements in an audio-only computing environment. The interaction relied on mouse movement and button presses for navigation. Experiment trials consisted of variations in sound duration, volume, and distinctness according to both experiment progress and user behavior. Participant interactions with the system were tracked to examine the usability of the interface. Preliminary results indicated the majority of participants mastered every provided test, but the total time spent ...

Improving Asynchronous Advantage Actor Critic With A More Intelligent Exploration Strategy, James B. Holliday

Theses and Dissertations

We propose a simple and efficient modification to the Asynchronous Advantage Actor Critic (A3C)

algorithm that improves training. In 2016 Google’s DeepMind set a new standard for state-of-theart

reinforcement learning performance with the introduction of the A3C algorithm. The goal of

this research is to show that A3C can be improved by the use of a new novel exploration strategy we

call “Follow then Forage Exploration” (FFE). FFE forces the agents to follow the best known path

at the beginning of a training episode and then later in the episode the agent is forced to “forage”

and explores randomly ...

Cslc Tutoring Portal, Brian Hodges

Theses/Capstones/Creative Projects

A web portal designed for the Computer Science Learning Center to track students requesting help

A Home Security System Based On Smartphone Sensors, Michael Mahler

Theses and Dissertations

Several new smartphones are released every year. Many people upgrade to new phones, and their old phones are not put to any further use. In this paper, we explore the feasibility of using such retired smartphones and their on-board sensors to build a home security system. We observe that door-related events such as opening and closing have unique vibration signatures when compared to many types of environmental vibrational noise. These events can be captured by the accelerometer of a smartphone when the phone is mounted on a wall near a door. The rotation of a door can also be captured ...

The Open World Microorganism, Stephen Thompson

Stephen Thompson

Cross Campus Collaborations, Sarah Asp Olson

Frontiers

As a computer scientist and a champion for accessibility, Dr. Guario Salivia works across campus to come up with tech solutions that work for all.

Math Behind Computer Graphics: Piecewise Smooth Interpolation, Jesica Bauer

Carroll College Student Undergraduate Research Festival

Modern computers are able to create complex imagery with only a small set of information. For example, the fonts on your computer are saved as a set of points and the computer is told how to connect them. Many 3D animations start the same way, where the animation starts as a grid before the rest of the shape is systematically filled in. But how does the computer know how to connect the dots into a mesh? Or know how to create the smooth surface so that it doesn’t look blocky? To solve these problems, we implement mathematical algorithms to ...

Survey Of Techniques For Producing Blended Images: A Case Study Using Rollins College Archives, Hannah Holman

Computer Science

The Rollins College Archives are a treasure trove of historic resources relating to the college’s history, and they are often underutilized or overlooked by both the student body and the surrounding community. In particular, historic resources are all too often excluded from work in computer science and related fields. This project aims to bridge that gap by bringing the two areas together. To that end, the goal of this project is to merge past and present by blending historic photos with input of a present day scene in order to reveal changes and juxtapositions of the same scene across ...

An Investigation Of Scenic Visualization Using Virtual Reality During Rehearsal, Cyrus Jian Bonyadi

Computer Science

In this paper, we discuss the use of virtual reality as a tool for actors during the rehearsal process and assess methods to implement and continue this research in future works. During the rehearsal process, the scenic design is normally introduced to actors close to the end of rehearsals. In introducing a virtual reality environment to train actors, we hoped to help them develop a better understanding of the design at an earlier point in the process. Our investigative pilot study involves two productions in a university theatre, where we render the scenic design of the production for which our ...

Speech Emotion Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Somayeh Shahsavarani

Computer Science and Engineering: Theses, Dissertations, and Student Research

Automatic speech recognition is an active field of study in artificial intelligence and machine learning whose aim is to generate machines that communicate with people via speech. Speech is an information-rich signal that contains paralinguistic information as well as linguistic information. Emotion is one key instance of paralinguistic information that is, in part, conveyed by speech. Developing machines that understand paralinguistic information, such as emotion, facilitates the human-machine communication as it makes the communication more clear and natural. In the current study, the efficacy of convolutional neural networks in recognition of speech emotions has been investigated. Wide-band spectrograms of the ...

Visualize To Realize: Improving Safety Of First Responders, Vikas Sahu

Student Research and Creative Activity Fair

The goal of this study is to improve the safety of first responders during an emergency hazardous material (hazmat) incident.

• A first responder (FR) is an individual who arrives first during a hazmat incident and takes the initiative to act in order to minimize the risk to public health and property from such incidents. Often first responders are firefighters.
• The reports of National Fire Protection Association recorded a national average of more than 30,000 firefighter injuries between 2010-16 (National Fire Protection Association, 2017).
• According to the US Fire Administration, an average fatality of 120 firefighters were recorded between 2010-16 ...

Customized Nonlinear Bandits For Online Response Selection In Neural Conversation Models, Bing Liu, Tong Yu, Ole Mengshoel, Ian Lane

Ole J Mengshoel

Natural Language, Mixed-Initiative Personal Assistant Agents, Joshua W. Buck, Saverio Perugini, Tam W. Nguyen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The increasing popularity and use of personal voice assistant technologies, such as Siri and Google Now, is driving and expanding progress toward the long-term and lofty goal of using artificial intelligence to build human-computer dialog systems capable of understanding natural language. While dialog-based systems such as Siri support utterances communicated through natural language, they are limited in the flexibility they afford to the user in interacting with the system and, thus, support primarily action-requesting and information-seeking tasks. Mixed-initiative interaction, on the other hand, is a flexible interaction technique where the user and the system act as equal participants in an ...

Video Guide To Design Flexible Dna.Mp4, Michelle Howell, Karin V. Van Dijk, Christine S. Booth, Tomáš Helikar, Brian Couch, Rebecca Roston

3-D printed model structural files

Model file name: Video guide to design flexible DNA.mp4

Authors: Michelle E Howell, Karin van Dijk, Christine S Booth, Tomas Helikar, Brian A Couch, Rebecca L Roston

This 30-minute video includes step-by-step instructions to design and 3-D print a long flexible DNA model that mimics the structure and function of DNA. The instructions are applicable for designing the model using open-source 3-D computer graphics software Blender 2.79 which is available for download at https://www.blender.org/download/.

.mp4 file download (70 MB) below.

A Proposed Approach To Hybrid Software-Hardware Application Design For Enhanced Application Performance, Alex Shipman

Theses and Dissertations

One important aspect of many commercial computer systems is their performance; therefore, system designers seek to improve the performance next-generation systems with respect to previous generations. This could mean improved computational performance, reduced power consumption leading to better battery life in mobile devices, smaller form factors, or improvements in many areas. In terms of increased system speed and computation performance, processor manufacturers have been able to increase the clock frequency of processors up to a point, but now it is more common to seek performance gains through increased parallelism (such as a processor having more processor cores on a single ...