A careful, investigative look at what could be described as “metaresearch” (research on research) within Human-Computer Interaction and Interaction Design reveals that there is an issue regarding the conceptualizing and communication of complex ideas and meanings. The multidisciplinary nature of this field causes confusion and difficulty in expression when disparate terminology from its different fields is used in unison to express ideas unique to it or complex enough to need sketching, gestures or extensive explanation to get the message across. This thesis argues that creating a unified language that can join these forms of expression is something that could potentially solve this issue, and proposes a blueprint of what such a language would look like, backing its claims using literature research and expert interviews.

Comics have been around for centuries and have had different culturalmeanings depending on era, genre and country. Toward the end of the 20thcentury and the start of the 21st century, we experienced the rise of theinternet as well as the normalization of home computers and with that,comics also started inhabiting the digital space. The digital space opens upfor opportunities of multimedia and new ways of interacting with comics, butmost comics maintain the formats of their printed counterparts.The goal of this thesis is to contribute knowledge to both interaction designpractice as well as digital comics. This is done by conducting research throughdesign and interaction-driven design and through them, launch anexploration into how different interactions affect the experience of reading.User tests as well as a workshop was conducted in order to help articulate theexperience. The conclusions reached were that a more active way ofinteracting (i.e. scrolling for instance) appeared to be preferable to othermore static ways of interacting. The usage of the digital space appeared to insome cases enhance the experience of reading but it was closely connected tothe nature of the interactions.

This thesis is an explorative, design-based research study towards the expressive potential of using actuators as design materials. Over three distinct phases of experimentation –all with their own particular aim– various sketches are developed that showcase different expressive qualities. These sketches consist of a variety of kitchen devices that are expanded with actuators. These actuators do not necessarily add to the functionality of the device, but rather to its expressiveness. The development of and reasoning for the sketches is clarified in an extensive way to clearly present all the insights that are gained throughout the design process. In the end, the sketches are discussed and reflected upon on the basis of the process-insights and relevant design theories.

By investigating the existing prototyping tools and emerging technological paradigms, this thesis contributes a new flow-based visual programming software called Glue which makes prototyping physical interactions and connected experiences easier for designers without a strong technical background. With overwhelming new technologies and interconnected disciplines, more designers learn technical know-how and build technical prototypes to better explore and evaluate concepts. However, most existing prototyping tools are still engineering-oriented and their ways of introducing programming and electronics can be intimidating for non-specialists. The aim of this thesis project has been to rethink prototyping tools and to bridge the gap between design tools and the new physical and digital hybrid design context. As a result, Glue is proposed and developed to offer an alternative way to create a program by manipulating logics graphically. With visible flows and real-time feedback, designers can learn, understand and create program intuitively. The smartphone integration allows beginners to set up flexible architectures and mimic connected experience easily. Glue also provides powerful ways to explore invisible behaviours across time and possibilities.

Currently, robotics is a discipline that is present, and it is becoming more important in daily life and different areas. Moreover, the research in this field is making improvements on the tasks that robots can perform, making it possible to appear in disciplines that have typically been made by humans, such as Art. In this project, it has been developed and implemented a program that allows the creation of paths after processing a picture, and the control of a real robot to follow the generated paths, in this case, the objective is to perform a sketch from a given picture. Nevertheless, it is applicable in many areas that need this kind of application like processing images, identification of trajectories, and path following. Moreover, in this project, it has been developed to simulate in a virtual environment the path planning and all the features of the real robot, which suppose that the user can check trajectories before trying on the real world, avoid problems of collisions or work without needing the physical robot. For that reason, the objective of this project is to contribute to the development of robotics and create a base that could be used in future research or as a source of information for similar projects that will be performed in the future.

Digital three-dimensional sketching and modeling is a field in computer science that is constantly evolving through new interaction paradigms. Many solutions move away from the traditional modern modeling software and aim to create a more natural and intuitive user experience. This report aims to compare an existing touch-screen solution against a novel implementation using augmented reality, that is made to replicate the way we draw in real life. A comparative task-based user study was performed and objective data was gathered together with a questionnaire and survey. Results indicate that subjects worked faster and preferred certain models when using the existing technology, while using the new implementation reached better or equal results in terms of spatial cognitive abilities, the frequency at which the user needed to redo their work, and wanted to reuse the software. Augmented reality showed good results when creating the simpler geometric shape of pyramids but comparatively worse results for objects of less uniform shapes. With further improvement, augmented reality can be seen as a good mean to improve the way we sketch and model in three di-mensions. / Digital 3D skissande och modellering är ett fält inom datavetenskap som konstant utvecklas genom nya interaktionsparadigmer. Många lösningar rör sig ifrån de traditionella, moderna, programvarorna för att skapa en mer naturlig och intuitiv användarupplevelse. Denna rapport har som mål att utvärdera en existerande pekskärmslösning gentemot en egen implementation som använder förstärkt verklighet i syfte att efterlikna det sätt vi ritar på i verkligheten. En jämförande uppgiftsbaserad användarstudie genomfördes och kvantitativ data samlades tillsammans med ett frågeformulär och en enkät. Resultaten indikerar att man arbetade snabbare och föredrog några modeller gjorda med den existerande programvaran medan den nya implementationen visade bättre eller likvärdiga resultat gällande den spatiala kognitiva förmågan, frekvensen då man ångrade sig samt återanvändbarhet. Förstärkt verklighet påvisade starka resultat gällande den enklare geometriska pyramidformen men jämförelsevis sämre resultat gällande mindre enhetliga former. Med ytterligare förbättringar så kan förstärkt verklighet ses som ett bra medium för att förbättra viset man skissar och modellerar i 3D.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(情報学) / 甲第23588号 / 情博第782号 / 新制||情||133(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院情報学研究科システム科学専攻 / (主査)教授 田中 利幸, 教授 下平 英寿, 准教授 櫻間 一徳 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Informatics / Kyoto University / DFAM

Considerable research has been done by various scholars to assess the significance of sketching in the early stages of the design process. However, sketching in design studies usually corresponds to drawing and the extensive research on the cognitive aspects of sketching does not always include three-dimensional sketching through physical and digital models produced in the early phases of design process. The aim of the presented research is to identify some characteristics of model-making that make it effective in the design process and design cognition as a form of sketching. Departing from key research on sketching which articulates its uncertain nature as a positive drive in early design phases, this thesis looks at whether physical and digital models can also be counted among ambiguous design tools. The inquiry is supported by empirical data from the protocol studies realized with three graduate students of architecture.

Due to its economic importance engineering design as a creative design problem solving has been the research subject of psychologists and design engineers for several years. Observations of designer's thinking and action processes show that especially in the early stages of the design process, in which requirements are clarified and ideas are developed, generating solutions is largely associated with the use of simple external representations such as sketches and material (physical) models. In the represented thesis the use and functions of such external aids were investigated at first with a questionnaire study consulting designers (N = 106) of different industries. The results demonstrate the dominance of sketches as well as the increasing use of CAD already in the early stages of product development. In contrast models are applied to a lesser extent. Thereby simple external aids are not only used as memory-relieving external information storages, but do also support solution development and testing, serve as an analysis aid and contribute helpfully to documentation and communication. Further in an experimental study the use and functions of sketching and manual modelling applied by engineering students and designers (N = 61) while working on two design problems of different complexity with free choice of the support form were analysed. The results verify the essential importance of sketching for the design process, since almost all subjects used sketches to deal with the two design problems, while material models were hardly applied. Again the sketches fulfil different functions, so besides documentation they mainly support solution development. These statement based findings that sketches in addition to their function as external storages for memory relief serve also as thinking aids, thus support the generating and further developing of solution concepts, could be confirmed by observation data based on the analysis of the individual design processes. Finally recommendations for the design of new and advanced computer-assisted design aids could be given. / Das Konstruieren als schöpferisch-entwerfendes Problemlösen (design problem solving) ist aufgrund seiner wirtschaftlichen Bedeutung seit längerem Gegenstand der Forschung von Psychologen und Konstruktionswissenschaftlern. Beobachtungen des Vorgehens des Konstrukteurs zeigen, daß insbesondere in den frühen Phasen des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses, in denen Anforderungen geklärt und Ideen generiert werden, die Lösungsentwicklung in hohem Maße durch einfache externe Hilfsmittel, wie Skizzen und gegenständliche Modelle, unterstützt wird. In der dargestellten Dissertation wurde Einsatz und Nutzen dieser Hilfsmittel zunächst anhand einer Befragung von Konstrukteuren (N = 106) verschiedener Branchen untersucht. Die Ergebnisse belegen die Dominanz von Skizzen sowie die Zunahme der Nutzung von CAD bereits in den frühen Phasen der Produktentwicklung. Modelle finden dagegen weniger häufig Verwendung. Einfache externe Hilfsmittel werden dabei nicht nur als gedächtnisentlastende externe Speicher eingesetzt, sondern unterstützen ebenso die Lösungsentwicklung und -überprüfung, dienen als Analysehilfe und tragen hilfreich zur Dokumentation und Kommunikation bei. Weiterhin wurde in einer experimentellen Studie der Einsatz und die Funktionen des Skizzierens und manuellen Modellierens bei der Bearbeitung zweier Konstruktionsprobleme unterschiedlicher Komplexität durch Maschinenbaustudenten und Konstrukteure (N = 61) bei freier Wahl der Unterstützungsform näher untersucht. Die Ergebnisse verifizieren die essentielle Bedeutung des Skizzierens für den konstruktiven Entwurfsprozeß, da nahezu alle Probanden die beiden Konstruktionsprobleme von Anfang an skizzierend bearbeiteten, während einfache Modelle so gut wie gar nicht eingesetzt wurden. Die Skizzen erfüllten wiederum verschiedene Funktionen, neben der Dokumentation wurden sie v.a. zur Lösungsentwicklung verwendet. Dabei konnten diese auf Aussagen beruhenden Erkenntnisse, daß Skizzen neben der Gedächtnisentlastung auch eine Denkhilfe bieten, durch aus der Analyse der Entwurfsprozesse gewonnene Beobachtungsdaten bestätigt werden. Abschließend wurden Gestaltungsempfehlungen für die Neu- und Weiterentwicklung computergestützter Hilfsmittel des konstruktiven Entwurfsprozesses formuliert.

L'animation expressive permet des styles de mouvements exagerés et artistiques comme l'étirement de parties du corps ou encore l'animation de créatures imaginaires comme un dragon. Créer ce genre d'animation nécessite des outils assez flexible afin de déformer les personnages en des poses quelconques, ainsi que de pouvoir contrôler l'animation à tout moment dans le temps. L'approche acutelle pour l'animation expressive est le keyframing: une approche manuelle avec laquelle les animateurs déforment leur personnage un moment spécifique dans le temps en cliquand et glissant la souris sur une partis spécifique du corps---un à la fois. Malgré le fait que cette approche soit flexible, il est difficile de créer des animations de qualité qui suivent les principes artistiques, puisque le keyframing permet seulement qu'un contrôle local spatiallement et temporellement. Lorsqu'ils dessinent des poses ou des mouvements, les artistes s'appuient sur différentes abstractions sous forme de croquis qui facillitent la réalisation de certain principes artistiques. Par example, certains animateurs dessinent des lignes d'action afin de créer une pose plus lisible et expressive. Afin de coordonner un mouvement, les animateurs vont souvent dessiner des abstractions de mouvement comme des demi-cercles pour des sauts, ou des boucles pour des pirouettes---leur permettant de pratiquer la coordination du mouvement. Malheureusement, ces outils artistiques ne font pas partis de l'ensemble d'outils de keyframing actuelle. Le fait que l'on ne puisse pas employer les même outils artistiques pour animater des personnages 3D a une forte conséquence: les outils d'animation 3D ne sont pas employés dans le processus créatif. Aujourd'hui, les animateurs créent sur du papier et utilisent le keyframing seulement à la fin pour réaliser leur animation. La raison pour laquelle nous n'avons pas ces outils artistiques (ligne d'action, abstractions de mouvement) en animation 3D, est parce qu'il manque une compréhension formelle de ceux-ci qui nous permettrais d'exprimer la forme du personnage---potentiellement au cours du temps---en fonction de la forme de ces croquis. Ainsi la contribution principale de cette thèse est une compréhension formelle et mathématique des abstractions de forme et de mouvement courrament employées par des artistes, ainsi qu'un ensemble d'algorithme qui permet l'utilisation de ces outils artistiques pour créer des animations expressives. C'est-à-dire que les outils développés dans cette thèse permettent d'étirer des parties du corps ainsi que d'animer des personnages de différentes morphologies. J'introduis aussi plusieurs extentions à ces outils. Par example, j'explore l'idée de sculpter du mouvement en permettant à l'artiste de dessigner plusieurs couches de mouvement une par dessus l'autre, de twister en 3D les croquis, ou encore d'animer un croquis ligne comme un élastique. Les contributions principales de cette thèse, aussi résumé ci-dessous: -La ligne d'action facilitant la création de poses expressives en dessinant directement le flow complet du personnage. -La courbe spatio-temporelle qui permet de spécifier un mouvement coordoné complet avec un seul geste (en dessinant une seule courbe), applicable à n'importe quel personnage 3D. -Un algorithme de matching rapide et robuste qui permet du ``squash and stretch''. -La ligne d'action élastique avec des attachements dynamiques à la ligne permettant d'animer un personnages à plusieurs jambes (bras) avec une seule ligne 2D animée. / Free-form animation allows for exaggerated and artistic styles of motions such as stretching character limbs and animating imaginary creatures such as dragons. Creating these animations requires tools flexible enough to shape characters into arbitrary poses, and control motion at any instant in time. The current approach to free-form animation is keyframing: a manual task in which animators deform characters at individual instants in time by clicking-and-dragging individual body parts one at a time. While this approach is flexible, it is challenging to create quality animations that follow high-level artistic principles---as keyframing tools only provide localized control both spatially and temporally. When drawing poses and motions, artists rely on different sketch-based abstractions that help fulfill high-level aesthetic and artistic principles. For instance, animators will draw textit{lines of action} to create more readable and textit{expressive} poses. To coordinate movements, animators will sketch textit{motion abstractions} such as semi-circles and loops to coordinate a bouncing and rolling motions. Unfortunately, these drawing tools are not part of the free-form animation tool set today. The fact that we cannot use the same artistic tools for drawing when animating 3D characters has an important consequence: 3D animation tools are not involved in the creative process. Instead, animators create by first drawing on paper, and only later are 3D animation tools used to fulfill the pose or animation. The reason we do not have these artistic tools (the line of action, and motion abstractions) in the current animation tool set is because we lack a formal understanding relating the character's shape---possible over time---to the drawn abstraction's shape. Hence the main contribution of this thesis is a formal understanding of pose and motion abstractions (line of action and motion abstractions) together with a set of algorithms that allow using these tools in a free-form setting. As a result, the techniques described in this thesis allow exaggerated poses and movements that may include squash and stretch, and can be used with various character morphologies. These pose and animation drafting tools can be extended. For instance, an animator can sketch and compose different layers of motion on top of one another, add twist around strokes, or turning the strokes into elastic ribbons. The main contributions of this thesis are summarized as follows: -The line of action facilitating expressive posing by directly sketching the overall flow of the character's pose. -The space-time curve allowing to draft full coordinated movements with a single stroke---applicable to arbitrary characters. -A fast and robust skeletal line matching algorithm that supports squash-and-stretch. -Elastic lines of action with dynamically constrained bones for driving the motion of a multi-legged character with a single moving 2D line.