From: intille@media.mit.edu
Subject: ONLINE: KidsRoom immersive environment - paper and website
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 18:22:20 -0400 (EDT)



Announcing a website and technical paper:

	  The KidsRoom: A Perceptually-Based Interactive and
		     Immersive Story Environment

	       Aaron Bobick, Stephen Intille, Jim Davis
	    Freedom Baird, Claudio Pinhanez, Lee Campbell
	      Yuri Ivanov, Arjan Schutte, Andrew Wilson
	
			 MIT Media Laboratory

The KidsRoom is a perceptually-based, interactive, narrative playspace
for children. Images, music, narration, light, and sound effects are
used to transform a normal child's bedroom into a fantasy land where
children are guided through a reactive adventure story. The
fully-automated system was designed with the following goals: (1) to
keep the focus of user action and interaction in the physical, not
virtual space; (2) to permit multiple, collaborating people to
simultaneously engage in an interactive experience combining both real
and virtual objects; (3) to use perceptual, computer-vision algorithms
to identify activity in the space without requiring the participants
to wear any special clothing or devices; (4) to use narrative to
constrain the perceptual recognition, and to use perceptual
recognition to allow participants to drive the narrative; (5) to
create a truly "immersive" and interactive room environment.

We believe the KidsRoom is the first multi-person, fully-automated,
interactive, narrative environment ever constructed using
non-encumbering sensors. This paper describes the KidsRoom, the
technology that makes it work, and the issues that were raised during
the system's development.


See:

     The KidsRoom website:
        http://vismod.www.media.mit.edu/vismod/demos/kidsroom

     The paper (compressed postscript):
        dhttp://vismod.www.media.mit.edu/vismod/demos/kidsroom/kidsroom.ps.Z


[Note: the papers been in draft form for a few months. It is now improved
 and completed. Feedback is welcome.]



Stephen


Stephen Intille
Research Assistant
MIT Media Lab
intille@media.mit.edu