Roberto Ranon

Previously: University of Udine

Keytar is a plucked guitar simulation mockup developed with Unity3D that provides auditory, visual, and haptic feedback to the player through a Phantom Omni robotic arm. Starting from a description of the implementation of the virtual instrument, we discuss our ongoing work. The ultimate goal is the creation of a set of software tools available for...

This article introduces Film Editing Patterns (FEP), a language to formalize film editing practices and stylistic choices found in movies. FEP constructs are constraints, expressed over one or more shots from a movie sequence, that characterize changes in cinematographic visual properties, such as shot sizes, camera angles, or layout of actors on t...

The aim of the research was to analyse some architectures designed by Le Corbusier and to visualize them with advanced technologies in order to explain better the singularity of their geometry and form. In particular we studied the Esprit Nouveau Pavilion and the Cabanon in Cap Martin. Both cases were developed with different systems of communicati...

In this position paper, we argue that advances in intelligent cinematography require better models of the multimodal structure of filmic discourse, and of the inferences made by an audience while films are being watched. Such questions have been addressed by film scholars and cognitive scientists in the past, but their models have not so far had su...

Computer-based simulations of emergencies increasingly adopt 3D graphics to visualize results and thus generate complex dynamic 3D scenes with many potentially parallel events that affect large groups of virtual characters. To understand the portrayed scenario, a viewer could interactively control a flying camera or switch among a set of virtual ca...

In this paper, we concentrate on the problem of finding the viewpoint that best satisfies a set of visual composition properties, often referred to as Virtual Camera or Viewpoint Composition. Previous approaches in the literature, which are based on general optimization solvers, are limited in their practical applicability because of unsuitable com...

We present the Director's Lens, an intelligent interactive assistant for crafting virtual cinematography using a motion-tracked hand-held device that can be aimed like a real camera. The system employs an intelligent cinematography engine that can compute, at the request of the filmmaker, a set of suitable camera placements for starting a shot. The...

This demonstration shows how an automated assistant encoded with knowledge of cinematography practice can offer suggested viewpoints to a filmmaker operating a hand-held motion-tracked virtual camera device. Our system, called Director's Lens, uses an intelligent cinematography engine to compute, at the request of the filmmaker, a set of suitable c...

The invention relates to a method for shooting and editing a film comprising at least one image of a 3D computer-generated animation created by a cinematographic software according to mathematical model of elements that are part of the animation and according to a definition of situations and actions occurring for said elements as a function of tim...

This paper presents VEX-CMS, a tool to build 3D virtual museums and exhibitions, architectural walkthroughs and, more generally, applications where 3D and 2D content is presented to the user inside a 3D Virtual Environment. In this paper, we concentrate on the task of designing tours of the virtual environment to be followed by visitors, either thr...

Declarative approaches to camera control model inputs as properties on the camera and then rely on constraint-based and/or op- timization techniques to compute the camera parameters or paths that best satisfy those properties. To reach acceptable performances, such approaches often (if not always) compute properties satisfaction in an approximate w...

This paper presents a high-level tool to build 3D virtual exhibitions from pre-existing 3D models and design virtual visits. Our tool exploits AI techniques and careful interaction design to require minimal technical knowledge by a curator, and allows one to: (i) easily arrange 3D models (e.g. of artworks) in a virtual space; (ii) find, through an...

In the modern urban society, human brain is not being sufficiently trained to deal with problems which require 3D perception. As a result, when teaching subjects richly infused with mathematics it is usually a challenge for the learners to follow the ...

To provide personalized health recommendations concerning disabled persons, an adaptive system needs a detailed user model that can account for the peculiar aspects of the many existing disabilities. This paper describes how we built such a user model and illustrates the Web-based system that allows all interested stakeholders to access and provide...

To the best of our knowledge, no research has been devoted to using knowledge-based systems to help nurses and volunteers of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in dealing with disabled patients. In the project described in this paper, we first conducted focus groups with EMS as well as clinicians specialized in disabilities and associations of disabl...

To survive a fire, occupants of a building have to be able to evacuate the structure before the situation becomes unsustainable. Evacuation time is thus a critical factor, but lack of knowledge about the basics of fire safety can dangerously increase this time and also result in various forms of unsafe behavior. In this paper, we propose serious ga...

Cyberinfrastructures that are being built in the United States and in Europe have the goal of enabling large-scale distributed science and engineering collaborations. However, there is still the need for effective groupware tools that will enable distributed and heterogeneous teams of people to effectively collaborate within these global scenarios....

Arranging 3D objects in Virtual Environments can be a complex, error prone and time consuming task, especially for users who are not familiar with interfaces for 3D navigation and object manipulation. In this paper, we analyze and compare novice users' performance on 3D object arrangement tasks using three interfaces that differ in the views of the...

Camera placement in 3D scenes is a relevant issue in most D graphics interactive application, such as videogames, data visualization, and virtual tours. Virtual Camera Composition (VCC) consists in automatically positioning a camera in a virtual world, such that the resulting image satisfies a set of visual cinematographic properties [1]. We propos...

The Virtual Camera Composition (VCC) problem consists in auto- matically positioning a camera in a virtual world, such that the resulting image satisfies a set of visual cinematographic properties (3). In this paper, we propose an approach to VCC based on Particle Swarm Optimization(5). We show, in re- alistic situations, that our approach outperfo...

This demo will illustrate the adaptive interface of an application (whose architecture and implementation have been presented in detail in (2)) for learning D Graphics programming (in the X3D ISO standard). The application situates users in a D Virtual Environment where they can learn by selecting and inspecting actual examples. Author Keywords Ada...

Web3D open standards allow the delivery of interactive 3D virtual learning environments through the Internet, reaching potentially large numbers of learners worldwide, at any time. This paper introduces the educational use of virtual reality based on Web3D technologies. After briefly presenting the main Web3D technologies, we summarize the pedagogi...

Based on a well-known adaptive hypermedia framework, the proposed system creates a 3D educational virtual environment that selects and personalizes interactive learning content for users. In EVEs, users not only see concepts visualized, but they can perform tasks in a suitable fictional world or a real-world reproduction. Moreover, compared to 2D m...

Obesity and lack of physical fitness are increasingly common in adults as well as children and can negatively affect health. Regular physical activity, such as jogging or training in a fitness center, is rec- ommended by physiologists to fight obesity and improve one's fitness, but usually requires considerable motivation. Recently, researchers as...

Future accelerators and experiments are operated by large international collaborations and typically by dispersed teams of experts. The facilities will be operated over many years and even decades. It will be prohibitive to maintain a complete staff of experts at the site. The load of regular visits of the site is tremendously eased when experts ca...

In recent years, technological developments have made it possible to build interactive 3D models of objects and 3D Virtual Environments that can be experienced through the Web, using common, low-cost personal computers, As in the case of Web-based hypermedia, adaptivity can play an important role in increasing the usefulness, effectiveness and usab...

This paper reports our recent work within the EuroTeV project, aimed at designing a Multipurpose Virtual Laboratory (MVL) to support collaboration among several European institutes, working in the area of physics research. Specifically, we discuss the type of support MVL can provrde to knowledge creation and sharing within its community of users. W...

Educational Cyberworlds allow one to circumvent physical, safety, and cost constraints that often affect real-world training and learning scenarios, allowing students to study the learning content flexibly and individually. However, this does not eliminate the need for presenting the educational materials in an effective way, using the visualizatio...

This paper presents a tool for the visual analysis of navigation patterns of moving entities, such as users, virtual characters, or vehicles in 3D Virtual Environments (VEs). The tool, called VU-Flow, provides a set of interactive visualizations that highlight interesting navigation behaviors of single or groups of moving entities that were the VE...

While a significant research effort has been devoted to produce virtual reconstructions of cultural heritage, the issue of reproducing the effects of natural or man-provoked disasters (e.g., earthquakes, floods, wars) on cultural heritage has received much less attention. Moreover, presenting these events with multimedia installations on mu-seums r...

The GRIDCC project will extend the use of Grid computing to include access to and control of distributed instrumentation. Access to the instruments will be via an interface to a Virtual Instrument Grid Service (VIGS). VIGS is a new concept and its design and implementation together with middleware that can provide the appropriate quality of service...

This paper presents the current status of VU-Flow (Visualization of Users' Flow), a software tool that is able to automatically record usage data in Virtual Environments and provide a set of 2D and 3D visualizations that make it easy for an evaluator to visually detect peculiar users' behaviors and navigability problems. The paper focuses on novel...

Web sites that include 3D content, i.e. Web sites where users navigate and interact (at least partially) through a 3D graphical interface, are increasingly employed in different domains, such as tutoring and training, tourism, e-commerce and scientific visualization. However, while a substantial body of literature and software tools is available ab...

Abstraction has been advocated as one of the main remedies for the computational complexity of model-based diagnosis. However, after the seminal work published in the early nineties, little research has been devoted to this topic. In this paper, we consider one of the types of abstraction commonly used in diagnosis, i.e., structural abstraction, in...

Many 3D virtual environments (e.g., 3D Web sites) do not offer sufficient assistance to (especially novice) users in navigating the virtual environment, find objects/places of interests, and learn how to interact with them. This paper proposes the adoption of guided tours of virtual environments as an effective user aid and describes a novel tool t...

Maps of physical environments and geographical areas are pervasively exploited in many human activities. Electronic maps of virtual worlds have been studied and proven to be useful as navigation aids to help users in finding their way through the 3D world. The contribution of this paper is twofold. In the first part, we propose an automatic method...

Many Web3D sites do not offer sufficient assistance t o (especially novice) users in navigating the virtual world, find objects/places of interests, and learn how to interact with them. This paper aims at helping the Web3D content creator to face this problem by: (i) proposing the adoption of guided tours of virtual worlds as an effective user aid...

This paper reports the first results of an on-going project aimed at developing a Web-based CSCW system to support scientific collabora-tion in experiments with ultra-bright light sources (from UV to X-rays), called the Elettra Virtual Collaboratory, and currently being extensively tested in three real-world experimental stations at the Elettra Syn...

Virtual Reality (VR) interfaces to e-commerce sites have recently begun to appear on the Internet, promising to make the eshopping experience more natural, attractive, and fun for customers. Unfortunately, switching to a desktop VR design for an e-commerce site is not trivial and does not guarantee at all that the interface will be effective. In th...

Virtual Reality (VR) interfaces to e-commerce sites have recently begun to appear on the Internet, promising to make the e-shopping experience more natural, attractive, and fun for customers. Adaptivity is an important issue for these VR applications, because it would make them suitable for the 1-to-1 ecommerce strategies towards which sellers are...

The capability of (semi)automatically adapting the content, structure, and/or presentation of a Web site to address the interests and preferences of each individual user is more and more considered as a key factor to increase user satisfaction and building customer loyalty. However, while a large body of literature is available about making traditi...

First of all, I would like to thank my supervisor Luca Chittaro for his support and advices, which were fundamental in developing the research described in this Thesis. Next, a big thank goes to reviewers Luca Console and Philippe Dague, which greately helped me in producing this final version. In particular, Phippe Dague did an enormous work by bo...

We propose a technique to improve the performance of hierarchical model-based diagnosis, based on structural abstraction. Given a hierarchical representation and the set of currently available observations, the technique is able to dynamically derive a tailored hierarchical representation to diagnose the current situation. We implement our strategy...

Virtual Reality (VR) interfaces to e-commerce sites have recently begun to appear on the Internet, promising to make the e-shopping experience more natural, attractive, and fun for buyers. Unfortunately, usability of these interfaces is a major and still unexplored issue. In this paper, we present the approach we are following to guarantee and incr...

This paper presents the Functional Diagnosis with efforts and flows (FDef) approach to model-based diagnosis. First, it motivates our research by considering the field of functional flow-based diagnostic techniques, pointing out some of their relevant limitations, which are overcome by FDef. Then, it summarizes and exemplifies the main FDef concept...

We have recently experimented the FDef (Functional Diagnosis with efforts and flows) approach on a real-world problem[1] (Chittaro, L., Fabbri, R. and López Cortés, J. Functional diagnosis goes to the sea: applying FDef to the heavy fuel oil transfer system of a ship. In Proceedings of FLAIRS-96, Key West, FL, USA. Florida Artificial Intelligence R...

In this paper, we consider flow-based approaches to functional diagnosis. First, we contrast the existing approaches, pointing out the major limitations of each. Then, we choose one of them and extend it in order to overcome the identified limitations. Finally, we show how the proposed extension can be introduced into the other flow-based approache...