The History of Science and Technology domain studies and describes the evolutions of human technical activities. Historians use new technologies such as Virtual Reality to reconstruct and expose the results of their research. In order to observe the evolutions of the studied systems inside a Virtual Environment, the user must be able to navigate through time. We propose a model of time based on two scales and to use tangible interactions to navigate on these two timescales.
In the History of Science and Technology (HST) domain, Virtual Reality (VR) has notably been
used to model and represent in 3D technical and industrial systems within which we find human
activities [
On the one hand VR, by immersing a user in a Virtual Environment (VE), ofers the possibility
to visualise and to take part in the realisation of an activity. On the other hand, to allow
CEUR
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1Artifact: human product that has a defined function and the ability to perform this function
3Procedure: sequence of action allowing the accomplishment of a task
4Period: a coherent set of phenomenons and cultural events in time. Source: CIDOC-CRM
navigation between the diferent periods, some research works have aimed at defining new
interactions metaphors (e.g., using time portals [
As part of our work, by relying on the theoretical benefits of the Tangible User Interfaces (TUI) [4, 5], we hypothesise that using a TUI would improve temporal navigation and the comprehension of the temporal evolutions of the activities represented inside a VE. For our ifrst demonstrator we use a Tangible Interactive Tabletop (TIT) allowing, first, to support the interactions with a tangible object and also to show a complementary semantic view of the VE (e.g., maps, diagrams).
Our work, therefore, aims to answer these two questions:1) Which metaphors of tangible interactions could we ofer so that a user could navigate through time in a virtual environment? 2) Which tangible interactors to use to realise these interactions?
In order to formalise human activities
associated with socio-technical systems Laubé et
al. [6] described ANY-Artefact, an ontology
based on CIDOC-CRM 2 and Dolce [
we first propose to align the notions of ac- Figure 1: Model of the representation of tivity between ANY-Artefact and MASCARET. time (notions of P e r i o d , P r o c e d u r e We then add the notions of P e r i o d , P r o c e d u r e and D u r a t i o n ) inside an activity, and D u r a t i o n of action. We present our propo- based on an alignment between sition with the figure 1. ANY-Artefact [6] and MASCARET [7].
In this figure, we represent a P e r i o d (blue frame on the figure 1) which contains the activities defined according to ANY-Artefact (green 5Activity: aggregation of the concepts of knowledge, actor and artifact to model human cultural and industrial practices.
6Actor: the person or the virtual character which has a specific function or position.
7Knowledge: the set of technical knowledge at a given time. oval on the figure 1) and MASCARET (orange activity diagram on the figure 1). According to ANY-Artefact, an activity is composed of knowledge directly associated with the notion of P e r i o d , artifacts and actors (respectively associated with the notions of resources and roles in MASCARET ). These associations are shown in the figure 1 by the dashed lines. We add the notion of D u r a t i o n of action, noted Δ , as well as the notion of P r o c e d u r e which we define as a succession of actions. The D u r a t i o n of a P r o c e d u r e , noted Δ , is equal to the sum of the D u r a t i o n of every action in the P r o c e d u r e . Finally, in order to navigate through time we propose to create two timescales: the P r o c e d u r e s c a l e associated with the temporality of the P r o c e d u r e s and the P e r i o d s c a l e linked to the evolution of knowledge (red elements on the ifgure 1).
This model is the first step in our research works in order to ofer a set of interaction paradigms allowing temporal navigation in a VE.
We organised a design workshop with the aim of proposing tangible interactions and interactors to navigate through time. The workshop took place on an afternoon and lasted for 4 hours. We split the workshop in 2 parts, first a brainstorm session whose objective was to propose ways of representing time in a tangible way, then a prototyping session during which the participants had to propose low-fidelity prototypes.
The participants were 17, 11 of them software engineers, 2 are historians, 2 are psychologists, 1 is a designer and 1 is a mechatronics engineer. 2.2.1. Brainstorm 2.2.2. Prototypes During the brainstorm the participants were asked how to represent time in a tangible way.
From the 20 distinct answers to this question 13 were inspired from everyday objects (e.g.: hourglass, candle ...), 4 from cultural references (e.g.: flux capacitor from the movie ”Back to the future”, mayan calendars ...) and 3 were metaphorical representations (e.g.: color gradient ...). During the prototyping phase the participants could work in groups or on their own. A total of 11 prototypes were proposed, we classified them in 3 categories according to the interactions they are proposing or their shapes. the user turns the discs in opposite directions he will go to the parent period (left part in anti-clockwise rotation and right part in clockwise rotation) or to a child period (left part in clockwise rotation and right part in anti-clockwise rotation). This interactor uses the same movement as the rotation of the clock hands to navigate through time.
Multi-function interactors The multi-function interactors all implements multiple interactions by using the position of the interactor as well as multiple buttons.
The augmented polyhedron prototype in figure 3 uses a screen to display diferent information to the user. When tilted on its side the interactor changes mode and can then be used to either change period or modify the speed of time. Because the polyhedron has 4 faces on which it can be tilted it is able to provide 4 diferent modes. The buttons on its sides can then be dynamically modified depending on the selected mode.
time and the workshop we implemented a prototype that we will use as a base for our future works. However at the moment this prototype is a proof of concept and does not consider the results of the design workshop.
The prototype uses a Tangible Interactive Tabletop (TIT) and a CAVE8 and is shown in the figure 5. It allows the user to explore the environment in a first-person view and to have a global point of view with the TIT.
The TIT is placed outside the CAVE to allow another user to control the temporal navigaFigure 5: Picture of our prototype in which a tion while the first user is immersed in the user is immersed inside the virtual en- environment. Using multiple displays has vironment representing the Pont Na- been shown to have significant advantages tional in Brest, France between 1861 compared to using a single display setup [8]. and 1944. Inside our virtual environment, we have modeled a bridge crossing the Penfeld’s mouth in Brest, France. Because Brest is a military harbour and the Penfeld is part of the arsenal, the bridge must move to allow the passage of ships. Over time diferent bridges using diferent technologies were built. Our prototype currently instantiates two of them: the Pont National (swing bridge, built in 1861 and destroyed in 1944 by Allied bombardment) and the Pont de Recouvrance (vertical-lift bridge, built in 1954) and their opening (respectively lifting) process. Each of these bridges correspond to a P e r i o d . The user can select which bridge (namely P e r i o d ) he wants to observe, trigger the opening P r o c e d u r e and control their course.
First, we integrated the 3D models of both bridges in the environment and we then implemented their respective opening P r o c e d u r e s .
We also developed the interface associated with the TIT (cf. figure 6). The interface is made up of three interaction areas: 1) an aerial view of the environment (in our case the mouth of the Penfeld river), 2) the list of the P e r i o d s generated from our model and 3) the activity diagram associated with the P r o c e d u r e running in the VE (cf., areas 1, 2 and 3 of the figure 6).
In order to allow the users to navigate Figure 6: Picture of our prototype’s interface.
8CAVE: a system using projectors and stereoscopic efects to immerse a user in a virtual environment through time on the timescale we defined earlier (P e r i o d s c a l e and P r o c e d u r e s c a l e ) we implemented interaction paradigms based on two metaphors: the time portal and the speedometer.
The selection of the observed P e r i o d (which is based on the time portal metaphor) allows the user to control the artifacts he sees (e.g., the Pont de Recouvrance) and the realisable P r o c e d u r e s (e.g., the lifting of the bridge). To do so, the user selects the P e r i o d by positioning the tangible interactor on one of the elements of the P e r i o d list displayed on the area n°2 of the interface.
The P r o c e d u r e (e.g., opening the Pont National bridge) can be controlled in two ways: continuous and discrete. First, the continuous mode, based on the metaphor of the speedometer, allows to control the speed at which time is passing by. This is controlled by the angle of the interactor beforehand placed on the area n°1 of the TIT’s interface. This navigation mode corresponds by analogy to the fast forward mode in the control of a movie. The discrete mode, based on the metaphor or the time portal, lets the user control the P r o c e d u r e step by step by positioning the interactor on an action of the activity diagram shown on the area n°3 of the interface. This mode is similar to a chapter selection while watching a movie.
The goal of our work is to propose new tangible interactions paradigms to manipulate time inside a Virtual Environment representing human activities. The first step in our work is to model time in technical activities. Our model is based on the ontology ANY-Artefact and the meta-model MASCARET. We add the notions of P e r i o d , P r o c e d u r e and D u r a t i o n . These three notions allow the user to navigate through time on two diferent scales.
We organised a design workshop whose objective was to propose tangible interactions and tangible interactors to implement the diferent functionalities previously mentioned. During this design workshop 11 low-fidelity interactors prototypes were designed, we plan to draw inspiration from them to design our interactor.
In parallel we have implemented a prototype using a Tangible Interactive Tabletop, a generic interactor and, a CAVE. This demonstrator allows the user to navigate according to the two timescales that our model describes.
The next step of our work is to implement an interactor taking inspiration in the result of the design workshop. We will then evaluate our proposition in 2 conditions, first in a controlled environment inside our laboratory and in a second time inside a museum. V. Gouranton, Evoluson: Walking through an interactive history of music, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 26 (2018) 281–296. [4] G. W. Fitzmaurice, Graspable User Interfaces, Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1996. [5] E. Hornecker, Beyond afordance: Tangibles’ hybrid nature, in: Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction, TEI ’12, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2012, pp. 175–182. URL: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/2148131.2148168. doi:1 0 . 1 1 4 5 / 2 1 4 8 1 3 1 . 2 1 4 8 1 6 8 . [6] S. Laube, S. Garlatti, R. Querrec, Histoire des paysages culturels industriels et humanités numériques : le modèle d’activité humaine ANY-ARTEFACT, in: “Capitalismo en el desierto: Materialidades, población y territorios en Atacama (ss. XIX-XXI)”, III Jornada de Antropología e Historia, Instituto de Arqueología y Antropología, Universidad Católica del Norte Centre de recherche et documentation sur les Amériques CREDA UMR7227 Laboratorio de Etnografía (Le), Departamento de Antropología, Universidad de Chile Escuela de Historia, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano, San Pedro d’Atacama, Chile, 2017. URL: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01950651. [7] R. Querrec, P. Vallejo, C. Buche, MASCARET: creating virtual learning environments from system modelling, in: The Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality 2013, volume 8649, International Society for Optics and Photonics, 2013, p. 864904. [8] A. Kunert, T. Weissker, B. Froehlich, A. Kulik, Multi-Window 3D Interaction for Collaborative Virtual Reality, IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (2019) 1. doi:1 0 . 1 1 0 9 / T V C G . 2 0 1 9 . 2 9 1 4 6 7 7 .