© Springer Japan KK 2017. All rights reserved. The aim of this project is to design and demonstrate the future of information environment where people get together. Personal computers and smart devices have succeeded in augmenting the ability of each person. At now, even when people meet at a place, they tend to gaze at their own displays. As a result, they cannot concentrate on face-to-face communication among them. This means that current information technology well designed for personal activities is insufficient for group ones. The authors believe that this problem is mainly caused by the limitation of current display technology. For exceeding this limitation, this article introduces three approaches: (1) privacy control of display content for promoting discussion in groups, (2) projection-based control of physical objects for suppressing the incompatibility between the physical and digitalworlds and (3) spatial imaging for augmented reality among people without wearable displays. These contributions can transform existing personal display technology to novel inter-personal one which is useful for people getting together.

In this paper, we present a novel acoustic sensing technique that recognizes two convenient input actions: hand gestures and on-body touch. We achieved them by observing the fre-quency spectrum of the wave propagated in the body, around the periphery of the wrist. Our approach can recognize hand gestures and on-body touch concurrently in real-time and is expected to obtain rich input variations by combining them. We conducted a user study that showed classification accu-racy of 97%, 96%, and 97% for hand gestures, touches on the forearm, and touches on the back of the hand.

In this study, we propose floatio: a floating tangible user interface that makes it easy to create a perception of animacy (lifelike movement). It has been pointed out that there are three requirements that make animacy more likely to be perceived: interactivity, irregularities, and automatic movement resisting the force of gravity. Based on these requirements, floatio provides a tangible user interface where a polystyrene ball resembling a pixel is suspended in a stream of air where it can be positioned passively by the user, or autonomously by the system itself. To implement floatio, we developed three mechanisms: a floating field mechanism, a pointer input/output mechanism and a handover mechanism. We also measured the precision of the pointer input/output and hand-over mechanisms.

We propose "Snow Walking," a boot-shaped device that reproduces the experience of walking in deep snow. The main purpose of this study is reproducing the feel of walking in a unique environment that we do not experience daily, particularly one that has depth, such as of deep snow. When you walk in deep snow, you get three feelings: the feel of pulling your foot up from the deep snow, the feel of putting your foot down into the deep snow, and the feel of your feet crunching across the bottom of deep snow. You cannot walk in deep snow easily, and with the system, you get a unique feeling not only on the sole of your foot but as if your entire foot is buried in the snow. We reproduce these feelings by using a slider, electromagnet, vibration speaker, a hook and loop fastener, and potato starch.

Paper is thin, light, portable and written on freely. This paper augments computing technology on paper with maintaining these advantages. Our past proposal was the system to display additional contents in natural print-like colors on paper by using UV projector and photochromic material which represents color when accepts UV light. To realize multiple color representation on this monochrome system, we introduce a new inkjet photochromic material and realize gradation by PWM and CMY representation by juxtaposition color mixture. Besides, to calculate limitation of this system and to demonstrate the fundamental directions, we discuss conditions in the situation where the external stimuli to control color locates separately to the pixels on display. Finally, we present practical applications.

We have developed a hybrid writing and erasure system called Hand-rewriting in which both human users and computer systems can write and erase freely on the same piece of paper. When the user writes on a piece of paper with a pen, for example, the computer system can erase what is written on the paper, and additional content can be written on the paper in natural print-like colors. We achieved this hybrid writing and erasure on paper by localized heating combined with handwriting with thermochromic ink and localized ultraviolet-light exposure on paper coated with photochromic material. This paper describes our research motivation, design, and implementation of this interface and examples of applications.

Focusing on the drawing sound as auditory feedback in the act of writing with an ordinary paper and pen, we have studied the effect of emphasized drawing sound. In this paper, we explain availability of emphasized auditory feedback of drawing sound in professional animation studio. In specific, we introduced our proposed system to animation producing process and performed a user study for 6 weeks to confirm its availability. The results from user study showed that animators used our proposed system at a rate of 93.0% during their total day and average of 5 hours a day. Moreover, we obtained the positive feedback in the interview such that they can draw dark and uniformly-thick line in quality by listening to drawing sound.

The project aims to pioneer a new field of information media technology for providing intuitive understanding and promoting face-to-face communication in everyday living environments and public spaces. Moreover, the project will explore some methodologies for producing emergent effects such as spurring intellectual curiosity and creative drive. Current information media technology is located in the confined situation in physical displays. As a result, our daily activities are divided into two categories: using digital equipment or not. It is time to explore a new technological field to pull down the barrier separating real and information worlds. For this purpose, the project develops methods that extend our real world by information technology. Especially, the project will focus on the nature of " spatial interaction," "compatibility," and "openness" in order to eliminate the physical constraints of display devices, enhance the compatibility between daily commodities and information devices, and activate the face-to-face communication by giving high priority concern to privacy issues.

Natural environments record their past and reveal usage in subtle cues such as erosion and footprints. In modern society of concrete cities and dynamic touch screens, this richness is lost. We present a large size interactive floor display that captures visitors' footsteps in playful prints to make a modern environment into a canvas of past activities. The implementation consists of a carpet coated with color changing ink and shoes that activate color changes. Each step a visitor makes results in a dynamic print that slowly fades away. © Springer International Publishing 2013.

In this paper, we explain quantitatively how the auditory feedback of writing sound between ordinary pen and paper influences the efficiency of simple writing tasks. Specifically, we evaluated the speeds in the simple task of tracing Chinese characters without auditory feedback, with natural writing sound, and with emphasized writing sound. The results of this study showed that users traced more characters and also had positive impressions with emphasized writing sound feedback in contrast with the other two conditions.

Estimating the number of visitors in museums is an important issue. This paper proposes to solve this problem by measuring CO_2 concentration in a museum. The CO_2 concentration is mainly affected by the number of visitors as well as the size of space, the amount of ventilation and the time to stay. A simplified model for estimating the number of visitors from the CO_2 measurement was investigated and applied at MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART TOKYO. Experimental results show that our proposed method can estimate the number of visitors in a day within 6.7% of errors.

We have developed a hybrid writing and erasure system called Hand-rewriting in which both human users and computer systems can write and erase freely on the same piece of paper. When the user writes on a piece of paper with a pen, for example, the computer system can erase what is written on the paper, and additional content can be written on the paper in natural print-like colors. We achieved this hybrid writing and erasure on paper by localized heating combined with handwriting with thermochromic ink and localized ultraviolet-light exposure on paper coated with photochromic material. This paper describes our research motivation, design, and implementation of this interface and examples of applications. © 2012 ACM.

Approaches for combining handwriting acts and control by computer are gaining force. As two types of general classifications of these approaches, the "pen tablet" and the "digital pen" are often cited. As for the former approach, in addition to being able to display handwritten information, it can display drawing effects and additional information related to that information. Data output by this approach, however, can only be handled by digital-type displays. As for the latter approach, although written information acquired as paper input can be digitized, it is not possible to express additional information as output on paper (i.e., a paper display). In contrast to those two approaches, the system proposed by the authors - -called "Handrewriting" - -automatically performs "rewrite" processing on paper in correspondence with handwriting using pen and paper. More specifically, with the proposed system, when the user writes on a piece of paper with a pen, for example, the information written on the paper is automatically erased as required, and additional information is displayed on the paper in natural print-like colors. © 2012 ACM.

SolaColor is a scheme for creating a place whose color is varied in response to sunlight. The aim of this work is to create sustainable spatial rendition by utilizing sunlight. A feature of this spatial-rendition scheme is rendering places by color-rather than contrast-of lighting. By means of SolaColor, areas in sunlight are colored, while shaded areas are coloress. When this scheme is practically applied, time-varying patterns appear in synchronization with the movement of the sun. When a person or object enters a space created by SolaColor, white shadows oriented according to the position of the sun are formed in the manner of a sundial. The scheme can be implemented by utilizing photochromic material and optical design, and it can be introduced in any location under sunlight without the need for an electrical-power supply.

SolaColor is a scheme for creating a place (namely, a floor space) whose color is varied in response to sunlight. The aim of the work is to create sustainable spatial rendition by utilizing sunlight. A feature of this spatial-rendition scheme is rendering places by color-rather than contrast-of lighting. By means of SolaColor, areas in sunlight are colored in pink, while shaded areas are colored white. When this scheme is practically applied, time-varying patterns appear in synchronization with the movement of the sun. When a person or object enters a space created by SolaColor, white shadows oriented according to the position of the sun are formed in the manner of a sundial. The scheme can be implemented by utilizing photochromic material and optical design, and it can be introduced in any location under sunlight without the need for an electrical-power supply.

In contrast to light-emitting displays like plasma display panels (PDPs) and liquid crystal displays (LCDs), color-forming displays like "E-Ink" which displays information by reflecting surrounding light are being actively researched as a technology that is easy on the eye and can even be applied in bright places such as outdoors in sunlight. Applying photochromic materials (PM) for controlling color in this manner, Photochromic Canvas [Hashida et al.2010] and Slow Display [Saakes et al.2010], which are combined with projected-light systems, make it possible to control color without contact with the surface of an object. In this paper, the concept, namely, "contactless color control," is extended to volumetric space, and "volumetric color-forming pixels" are successfully created. This paper proposes a system referred to as "photochromic sculpture" which can generate a dynamically changeable 3D sculpture. (see Figure 1).

The goal of this project is to augment the visitor's museum experience using digital technologies. For this purpose, the authors have been investigating and developing several systems which can be classified into two categories: (a) mixed reality displays and (b) experience support systems. As for (a), this paper illustrates three systems to superimpose virtual images onto physical exhibits: ExFloasion, Bousight Table, and FloasionTable. Their key feature is the optical design for providing 3D visual effect without any special glasses. They are useful for giving visitors some intuitive explanations of physical exhibits at museum. In addition, the authors consider that total (before and after) services are very important as well as the on-site (at museum) one. The category (b) includes networked visualization of congestion situation (Breathing Museum), social networking to share visitors' feelings (Post-Visit Board), and personalized mementos for each visitor (Peaflet). They are effective for making people want to visit museums and promoting greater understanding. This paper gives a brief overview of these systems. Copyright © 2010 by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.

This paper introduces a system for improvisational musical expression that enables all users, novice and experienced, to perform intuitively and expressively. Users can generate musically consistent results through intuitive action, inputting rhythm in a decent tempo. We demonstrate novel mapping ways that reflect user's input information more interactively and effectively in generating the music. We also present various input devices that allow users more creative liberty.