--- MINUTES FROM THE *NIW* KICKOFF MEETING --- COPENHAGEN, 8-9 OCTOBER 2008 - Author: F. Fontana Oct. 8 - AALBORG UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN - ROOM M 2.76 The meeting starts at 9:30am Participants: - UNIVR: F. Fontana, S. Papetti - McGill University: Y. Visell - AAU: S. Serafin, S. Dahl - INRIA: A. Lecuyer, M. Marchal, G. Cirio - UPMC: V. Hayward A. Administration/management/financial protocols, important dates, notes on consortium agreement, management structures A1. The Coordinator informs that on Oct 7 he has given the ok to its administration for forwarding the pre-financing to the European participants. Visell informs participants that the McGill University application is under review in MDEIE. Recent contact with MDEIE suggested external reviews were all positive, and an answer is expected soon. A2. The Coordinator provides every participants with an envelope containing: - the participant Accession Form's duly signed copy - copy of the CA - copy of the GA He recommends all participants to transmit the envelope and its content to their own administration A3. The Coordinator opens a meeting of the General Assembly with the appointed members: F. Fontana (UNIVR), Y. Visell (McGill University), S. Serafin (AAU), A. Lecuyer (INRIA), V. Hayward (UPMC) - the Coordinator reads the CA to the General Assembly - the General Assembly elects the Management Support Team: F. Fontana (UNIVR), Y. Visell (McGill University), S. Serafin (AAU), A. Lecuyer (INRIA), V. Hayward (UPMC) - the Coordinator receives from the AAU Management Support Team member the original of the signed CA paper - notwithstanding anymore issue to be discussed, the meeting of the General Assembly is closed A4. The Coordinator reminds all European participants to become well aware of the financial protocols used in the project, also depending on the accounting system adopted by their own administration A5. The Coordinator runs through the important dates and expected project milestones - a time sheet is presented to all participants - it is agreed that this time sheet will be made accessible to all participants, for agenda purposes, further completion, and online consultation and updating B. Communication infrastructure, mailing list, repository, templates of project logo and website B1. The Coordinator proposes to host the online resources on a dedicated server based at the coordinating institution: mailing list, web site, public and private repository B2. The Coordinator proposes some graphic prototypes of the official NIW project logo - participants agree in providing their own preferences to the Coordinator in the next weeks - the Coordinator will transmit the graphic material to the participants via email B3. Ideas for the design of a website are discussed. Visell proposes a minimalist graphical content, that will be generated internally by the consortium. He will be soliciting designs from Nathanael Hamon / www.slanginternational.org B4. The Coordinator proposes to host a mailing list, the web site, and a public and private repository in-house at UNIVR. Visell proposes to open a wiki page for public communication purposes. C. Project dissemination (advertising material, brochures, conferences/events partners want to tackle...) C1. Ideas and support from the participants for the design of official brochures are encouraged - Yon Visell will enter in touch with a graphic design studio specialized in the design of paper material. UNIVR will provide economical support to this activity C2. AAU launches a preliminary project agenda concerning participation to conferences. Possible (not necessarily alternative) selected choices are - organization of HAID 2010 in Copenhagen (contacts taken by Fontana) - a half-day session at IEEE VR 2010 or 2011 or Worldhaptics 2011 (Hayward and Lecuyer will manage this) - afternoon workshop at the July 2009 SMC school in Porto (smc2009.inescporto.pt, Serafin will enter in touch with the organizers) C3. The Coordinator reminds that at least a joint activity with another FET project is advisable, as claimed in WP7 D. Short Presentation of the participants' research activity D1. UNIVR presentation (F. Fontana and S. Papetti) D2. McGill University presentation (Y. Visell) D3. AAU presentation (S. Serafin) D4. INRIA presentation (A. Lecuyer) D5. UPMC presentation (V. Hayward) The meeting stops at 12:30pm (lunch). The meeting starts again at 1:30pm E. The Coordinator transmits a message to the Consortium coming from the project Officer F. The discussion on research components starts F1. Physical design: lacking any conclusive long term vision about the ultimate NIW physical interface, nevertheless participants agree in the basic design and prospective realization of a wearable/mobile as well as a floor-based platform - the wearable platform could be made of foot-based force sensors, microphones, and small loudspeakers; (perhaps) heel-based bone conducting piezo-actuators; augmented visual headset; (perhaps) bone-conducting headphone set - the floor-based platform could be made with an as largest 2D array of active tiles based on existing technology at McGill: force sensors; vibrational actuation based on voice coils underfloor; visual projectors; floor-based loudspeakers F2. Scenarios: current ideas on potential scenarios of interest include: concrete (neutral) floors; scaffolded wooden floors with cavity underneath; grass; ice; sand - all such scenarios should potentially be displayed using the above platforms, once these interfaces are informed with proper computational models. Previous knowledge in this sense includes sound synthesis models for crumpled grounds at UNIVR and visual flow distortion models at INRIA displaying egocentric locomotion, that may be used to convey sensations of endangered solidity of a pathway. F3. Long-term physical design: to date yet to be established, but - Hayward proposes novel shoe-based haptic paradigms, capable in principle of displaying floor textures and knocks underfoot. While being prospectively feasible due to availability of some related technology, the engineering of the components enabling such displays need further investigation at the basic design level - Visell foresees that networking a reasonable number of active tiles is not an easy task as far as inexpensive technologies are considered. Further research is so needed in this direction The meeting stops at 6:00pm Informal discussions about the project continue during the dinner Oct. 9 - HOTEL CABINN - LOUNGE The meeting starts at 9:00am G. Interoperability of systems: ideas for shared software infrastructure, software engineering G1. Hayward presents affordable software environments that have already been proven reliable in his laboratory, especially when signals must be acquired at high rate. Among them, the Xenomai Linux kernel extension provides an optimal environment in which to run real-time C code G2. INRIA has gained a well established knowledge on real time VR systems based on OpenMask and other programming environments, yet they cannot readily shared within the consortium G3. McGill University, AAU, and UNIVR have gained experience on the use of data acquisition and real-time sound synthesis libraries working under Max/MSP and pd. The latter environment appears to be more interesting for this project, since being freeware and more reliable under high throughput conditions. For this reason, Fontana proposes to consider, at least concerning the sound synthesis software models, Java externals as a competitive alternative to C externals, for their interoperability under Max/MSP and pd as well as their operating system independence G4. All participants agree in that only tight mutual collaboration will shed light on how to put together the diverse software components, either by sharing programming environments or by enabling their synchronized communication through protocols like OSC. Such a collaboration must start immediately. H. interaction among partners: priorities and ways to optimize partner's activities along the project H1. The Coordinator puts some stress on how to implement an efficient collaboration in the short term. A roadmap for the next four months is devised: - McGill University and AAU will share their know-how in plugging force sensors inside shoes, that will transmit data to a portable pc with low latency via USB. The Arduino board is selected as one good candidate to provide such throughput of data at least for interaction design purposes - in parallel, UNIVR will start to design and realize sonified shoes using small loudspeakers. When informed with existing real-time sound synthesis models, the resulting platform will enable walkers to get interactive sounds during walking. - the same platform will be forwarded to INRIA, for getting its research team more accustomed with the related design approach and to probe the compatibility of the existing software architectures with the INRIA programming environments H2. In parallel to this activity, an evolution of the sound synthesis models will be carried on by AAU and UNIVR, with particular concerning the acoustic display of solid surfaces - AAU will conduct state-of-the-art research in related existing literature, as well as propose original novel solutions to this problem - UNIVR will try to extend its granular-based sound model for crumple grounds to homogeneous surfaces by abstract remodelling of the temporal and amplitude statistics of the impacts H3. Medium-term goals (within 9-12 months) are proposed: - McGill and UNIVR will collaborate on the positional detection of steps by sensing surfaces, as customized TAI-CHI techniques at UNIVR may be conveniently integrated into the active tile platform existing at McGill - Visell emphasizes the need to generate an annotated set of recorded walking sounds, that will be possibly used in later experiments taking place during the project - INRIA puts emphasis on some visual-haptic effects. Among these, it has been discovered that visually drawing with a mouse over a figure becomes easier if the same figure is positioned at the centre of a circle, and force feedback is applied toward the centre and proportionally to the distance of the pointer from the centre. Exporting this paradigm to a bounded navigation area may help walkers understand when they are approaching the boundaries even if they are invisible (i.e. in the inside of a virtual scenario projected by a CAVE) H4. Long-term goals (within the next three years) are also proposed: - Hayward is working on a novel friction model that should overcome known flaws existing in current solutions. Serafin proposes to collaborate with Hayward in this activity - aside of floor based (TAI-CHI) solutions for positional detection of walkers, Hayward proposes to embed low cost laser-based technologies in shoes, such as those available in current USB-wireless mice. If working, the shoe-based laser mouse may provide a cheap but powerful wearable solution to what is an otherwise hard problem, i.e. the detection of sliding movements - as emphasized by Serafin, the engineering of reliable force and positional sensing devices for measurement purposes remains an open chapter. Visell hopes to gain some deeper insight concerning this issue in the forthcoming research at McGill on floor-based and shoe-based sensing - medical (geriatric) application seem to be at project's reach, once experts in this field will be consulted. Potential links with this know-how can be established by UNIVR, AAU, and McGill - opening relationships with shoe manufacturers is an aspect worth considering K. Next meeting. General agreement exists in organizing the next meeting at the Coordinator site at the beginning of March. Possible location will be University of Verona and its convention places (Canazei or Garda Lake) or Venice (place yet to be determined) The meeting closes at noon.