The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is focusing on towards two paradoxical directions especially after the oil-boom. The first is the contemporary architectural development, while the second is the conservation of traditional dwellings and historical sites in the country. It is obvious that the management and planning towards the first direction are fully integrated and highly précised to be implemented efficiently, thus, unveiling a new façade of contemporary lifestyle to the world. But the second direction is lacking good strategic efforts for conservation, preservation methods and tourism promotion, especially among different authorities that are in charge of either management or implementation of conservation techniques. Therefore, the country started looking for solutions that initiate the right management strategy to be followed and improve the use and promotion of tangible heritage. In this research, I am taking the case of the city of Al-Ain since it has started taking the path and has established an agreement with UNESCO. Geographical Information Systems is used in this research as a tool to implement the major objectives and solutions for issues discussed in the agreement. In this research, the main issues that were discussed in the agreement were segregated and studied separately in terms of geographic extent, then, spatially represented on the map. Furthermore, they were analyzed using the different techniques in the Geographical Information Systems software ArcGIS to demonstrate each issue and problem and study its expected results. It was clear from this research that these issues were clearly presented using the software and will aid in the decision making process, especially for stakeholders and different entities in the city of Al Ain.

There is a lot of published literature in the disciplines of Archaeology and Anthropology on ceramics that amongst others focus on their typologies, dating sequences, manufacture and trade with reference to groups of people that inhabit the Southern African region. Additionally, several studies have focussed on the use of ceramic objects including figurines in ritual practices of these societies. However, the emphasis has been differential and skewed as it has largely been focussed on certain cultures such as that of the Zulu group or linked to archaeological sites, to the exclusion of other groups. For example, there is scant literature that focuses on the description or discussion of ceramic vessels by the Basotho-Batswana people of Southern Africa, who, like the Zulu have an active ceramic tradition including the manufacture and reverence of spiritual ceramic vessels. The thrust of this dissertation is therefore to widen our understanding and knowledge of the spiritual significance of African ceramic vessels by focusing particular attention on how these Sotho-Tswana groups practice this tradition with the ultimate objective of encouraging the appropriate recognition and preservation of traditional African ceramic vessels. / Mini Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2020. / Mellon Foundation / Tangible Heritage Conservation / MSocSci (Tangible Heritage Conservation) / Unrestricted

La plupart des métiers du travail de l’information requièrent maintenant de passer la majeure partie de nos journée devant un écran. Ceci s’ajoute au temps déjà consacré à ce médium dans nos temps libres pour le divertissement et la communication, que ce soit en utilisant des téléphones intelligents, tablettes ou ordinateurs. Alors que les avancées technologiques dans le domaine des écrans tactiles nous ont permis d’interagir avec ces appareils de manière plus expressive, par exemple en utilisant nos doigts pour interagir directement avec le contenu numérique, ce que nous voyons et manipulons sur écran reste “intouchable” ; nos doigts ne pouvant pénétrer la surface de l’écran pour toucher le contenu numérique qui se trouve derrière. Pour que l’interaction avec le monde numérique soit écologique dans le futur, elle doit mettre à profit l’ensemble des différentes capacités de l’humain au lieu de ne se concentrer que sur certaines d’entre elles (comme le toucher et la vision), laissant les autres sens s’atrophier. Une façon de considérer le problème est d’utiliser le monde réel physique comme support pour le monde numérique, permettant d’imaginer un futur où les objets du quotidien auront de riches et expressives fonctions numériques, tout en étant ancrés dans le monde réel. La réalité augmentée spatiale est une modalité permettant d’aller dans cette direction. Cette thèse s’intéresse principalement à deux aspects en lien avec ces objets tangibles augmentés. Dans un premier temps, nous soulevons la question de comment interagir avec du contenu numérique lorsqu’il est supporté par des objets physiques. Comme point de départ de notre investigation, nous avons étudié différentes modalités qui utilisent des dispositifs d’entrée/sortie typiquement retrouvés dans un environnement de bureau. Cette approche est justifiée par le désir d’utiliser au maximum l’expérience que les utilisateurs ont déjà acquise avec leurs outils numériques tout en se dirigeant vers un espace d’interaction comprenant des éléments physiques. Dans un second temps, nous sommes allés au delà du thème de l’interaction avec le contenu numérique pour se questionner sur le potentiel des objets tangibles augmentés comme support pour un médium plus humain. Nous avons investigué comment ces artéfacts augmentés, combinés à différents capteurs physiologiques, pourraient permettre d’améliorer notre conscience des processus internes de notre corps et de notre esprit, pour éventuellement favoriser l’introspection. Cette partie a pris la forme de deux projets où un avatar tangible a été proposé pour laisser les utilisateurs explorer et personnaliser le retour d’information sur leurs propres états internes en temps réel. / Most of our waking hours are now spent staring at a screen. While the advances in touch screens have enabled a more expressive interaction space with our devices, by using our fingers to interact with digital content, what we see and manipulate on screen is still being kept away from us, locked behind a glassy surface. The range of capabilities of the human senses is much richer than what screens can currently offer. In order to be sustainable in the future, interaction with the digital world should leverage these human capabilities instead of letting them atrophy. One way to provide richer interaction and visualization modalities is to rely on the physical world itself as a host for digital content. Spatial Augmented Reality provides a technical mean towards this idea, by using projectors to shed digitally controlled light onto real-world objects to augment them and their environment with features and content. This paves the way to a future where everyday objects will be embedded with rich and expressive capabilities, while still being anchored in the real world. In this thesis, we are interested in two main aspects related to these tangible augmented objects. In a first time, we are raising the question on how to interact with digital content when it is hosted on physical objects. As a basis for our investigation, we studied interaction modalities that leverage traditional input and output devices found in a typical desktop environment. Our rationale for this approach is to leverage the experience of users with traditional digital tools – tools which researchers and developers spent decades to make simpler and more efficient to use – while at the same time steering towards a physically enriched interaction space. In a second time, we go beyond theinteraction with the digital content of augmented objects and reflect on their potential as a humane medium support. We investigate how these augmented artifacts, combined with physiological computing, can be used to raise our awareness of the processes of our own bodies and minds and, eventually, foster introspection activities. This took the form of two different projects where we used tangible avatars to let users explore and customize real-time physiological feedback of their own inner states.

No description available.

nuSense is the result of a degree work on master level at Umeå Institute of Design exploring why wearable technology oftentimes tread a rather narrow path, with many different companies releasing essentially the same product with a new shell, and innovation being slow. Through research, interviews and user research, hardware prototyping and testing it became clear that developing for wearable technology is a very complicated task, for many reasons. Being able to build quick exploratory prototypes was nigh impossible if you do not have a grasp of hardware developing platforms and programming. Further, those outside the industry who just want to explore wearable technology lack a platform to do so easily, aside from buying ready-made solutions made to do one single prepackaged thing. Based on this a concept was developed to provide a platform to explore wearable technology, through modular building-blocks and an easy to grasp interface.

ServiceSketch is a collaborative tabletop tool for service design. It was developed to address some of the challenges designers face when developing service systems, including the dynamic, intangible nature of service and the complexity of coordinating multiple stakeholders over time and space. The concept for the tool draws from literature on service design, tangible user interfaces, and co-creation. It was also informed by user research sessions with graduate design students. The interface of ServiceSketch consists of a large multi-touch surface display that reacts to finger touches and a provided set of physical objects. Both the hardware and software development of ServiceSketch are described in this document. ServiceSketch was evaluated with groups of graduate design students who were asked to perform small group service design activities using the tool. These sessions showed that ServiceSketch was successful in supporting common service design processes and even inspired many participants to suggest possible future developments for the tool. ServiceSketch also seemed to encourage a playful, collaborative approach to service design. The results of the project hint at the possibilities for a new breed of service design tool, one that focuses on facilitating conversations about service through an engaging, interactive medium.

This thesis presents an exercise-based edutainment system intended for children. It is designed to enhance their cognitive development by encouraging movement in a fun way. The main idea behind the system is that children will have fun constructing a physical, tangible user interface. In addition, they will learn how to spell many words that represent objects and entities by stepping on a collection of coloured pads and receiving responses through a set of multimedia outputs related to these entities. For this purpose we have designed and implemented a tangible user interface that facilitates interaction with the system. This tangible user interface is called "SmartPads" and is composed of coloured tiles that can be physically connected to each other to form any shape. The pads are mapped onto a computer screen in real-time. A user interacts with the interface by stepping on the pads. We have incorporated two games that allow children of different ages to benefit from the system's functionalities and encourage them to interact with it. This thesis provides detailed information about the proposed system and its related components, discusses the design and development of the two games, and measures the system's performance when used by the children.

No description available.

Artistic painting involves mastery of haptic interaction with tools. Each tool brings unique physical affordances which determines an aesthetic expression of the finished work. For instance, a pen offers an ability to make a precise stroke in a realism painting, whereas a thick brush or a sponge works perfectly with dynamic arm movement in the abstract art such as action painting. Yet the selection of a tool is just a beginning. It requires repetitive training to understand the full capability of the tool affordance and to master the painting of preferred aesthetic strokes. Such physical act of an artistic expression cannot be captured by the computational tools today. Due to the increasing market adoption of augmented reality and virtual reality, and the decades of studies in haptics, we see an opportunity for advancing 3D painting experiences in non-conventional approach. In this research, we focus on force haptic interaction for 3D painting art in a room-scale virtual reality. We explore virtual tangibility and tool affordance of its own medium. In addition to investigating the fidelity of a physical interactivity, we seek ways to extend the painting capabilities by computationally customized force feedback and metaphor design. This system consists of a wearable force feedback device that sits on user’s hand, a software for motor control and real-time 3D stroke generation, and their integration to VR platform. We work closely with an artist to refine the 3D painting application and to evaluate the system’s usability.

This thesis presents an exercise-based edutainment system intended for children. It is designed to enhance their cognitive development by encouraging movement in a fun way. The main idea behind the system is that children will have fun constructing a physical, tangible user interface. In addition, they will learn how to spell many words that represent objects and entities by stepping on a collection of coloured pads and receiving responses through a set of multimedia outputs related to these entities. For this purpose we have designed and implemented a tangible user interface that facilitates interaction with the system. This tangible user interface is called "SmartPads" and is composed of coloured tiles that can be physically connected to each other to form any shape. The pads are mapped onto a computer screen in real-time. A user interacts with the interface by stepping on the pads. We have incorporated two games that allow children of different ages to benefit from the system's functionalities and encourage them to interact with it. This thesis provides detailed information about the proposed system and its related components, discusses the design and development of the two games, and measures the system's performance when used by the children.