Smartphone+application
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Augmented Reality Application for Smart Tour
‘K-Culture Time Machine,’ an augmented and virtual reality application will create a new way to take a tour. Prof. Woon-taek Woo's research team of Graduate School of Culture Technology of KAIST developed AR/VR application for smart tourism.
The 'K-Culture Time Machine' application (iOS App Store app name: KCTM) was launched on iOS App Store in Korea on May 22 as a pilot service that is targetting the Changdeokgung Palace of Seoul.
The application provides remote experience over time and space for cultural heritage or relics thorough wearable 360-degree video. Users can remotely experience cultural heritage sites with 360-degree video provided by installing a smartphone in a smartphone HMD device, and can search information on historical figures, places, and events related to cultural heritage. Also, 3D reconstruction of lost cultural heritage can be experienced.
Without using wearable HMD devices, mobile-based cultural heritage guides can be provided based on the vision-based recognition on the cultural heritages. Through the embedded camera in smartphone, the application can identify the heritages and provide related information and contents of the hertages. For example, in Changdeokgung Palace, a user can move inside the Changdeokgung Palace from Donhwa-Gate (the main gate of the Changdeokgung Palace), Injeong-Jeon(main hall), Injeong-Moon (Main gate of Injeong-Jeon), and to Huijeongdang (rest place for the king). Through the 360 degree panoramic image or video, the user can experience the virtual scene of heritages.
The virtual 3D reconstruction of the seungjeongwon (Royal Secretariat) which does not exist at present can be shown of the east side of the Injeong-Jeon The functions can be experienced on a smartphone without a wearable device, and it would be a commercial application that can be utilized in the field once the augmented reality function which is under development is completed.
Professor Woo and his research team constructed and applied standardized metadata of cultural heritage database and AR/VR contents. Through this standardized metadata, unlike existing applications which are temporarily consumed after development, reusable and interoperable contents can be made.Professor Woo said, "By enhancing the interoperability and reusability of AR contents, we will be able to preoccupy new markets in the field of smart tourism."
The research was conducted through the joint work with Post Media (CEO Hong Seung-mo) in the CT R&D project of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Korea. The results of the research will be announced through the HCI International 2017 conference in Canada this July.
Figure 1. 360 degree panorama image / video function screen of 'K-Culture Time Machine'. Smartphone HMD allows users to freely experience various cultural sites remotely.
Figure 2. 'K-Culture Time Machine' mobile augmented reality function screen. By analyzing the location of the user and the screen viewed through the camera, information related to the cultural heritage are provided to enhance the user experience.
Figure 3. The concept of 360-degree panoramic video-based VR service of "K-Culture Time Machine", a wearable application supporting smart tour of the historical sites. Through the smartphone HMD, a user can remotely experience cultural heritage sites and 3D reconstruction of cultural heritage that does not currently exist.
2017.05.30 View 10896 -
Improving Traffic Safety with a Crowdsourced Traffic Violation Reporting App
KAIST researchers revealed that crowdsourced traffic violation reporting with smartphone-based continuous video capturing can dramatically change the current practice of policing activities on the road and will significantly improve traffic safety.
Professor Uichin Lee of the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering and the Graduate School of Knowledge Service Engineering at KAIST and his research team designed and evaluated Mobile Roadwatch, a mobile app that helps citizen record traffic violation with their smartphones and report the recorded videos to the police.
This app supports continuous video recording just like onboard vehicle dashboard cameras. Mobile Roadwatch allows drivers to safely capture traffic violations by simply touching a smartphone screen while driving. The captured videos are automatically tagged with contextual information such as location and time. This information will be used as important evidence for the police to ticket the violators. All of the captured videos can be conveniently reviewed, allowing users to decide which events to report to the police.
The team conducted a two-week field study to understand how drivers use Mobile Roadwatch. They found that the drivers tended to capture all traffic risks regardless of the level of their involvement and the seriousness of the traffic risks. However, when it came to actual reporting, they tended to report only serious traffic violations, which could have led to car accidents, such as traffic signal violations and illegal U-turns. After receiving feedback about their reports from the police, drivers typically felt very good about their contributions to traffic safety.
At the same time, some drivers felt pleased to know that the offenders received tickets since they thought these offenders deserved to be ticketed. While participating in the Mobile Roadwatch campaign, drivers reported that they tried to drive as safely as possible and abide by traffic laws. This was because they wanted to be as fair as possible so that they could capture others’ violations without feeling guilty. They were also afraid that other drivers might capture their violations.
Professor Lee said, “Our study participants answered that Mobile Roadwatch served as a very useful tool for reporting traffic violations, and they were highly satisfied with its features. Beyond simple reporting, our tool can be extended to support online communities, which help people actively discuss various local safety issues and work with the police and local authorities to solve these safety issues.”
Korea and India were the early adaptors supporting video-based reporting of traffic violations to the police. In recent years, the number of reports has dramatically increased. For example, Korea’s ‘Looking for a Witness’ (released in April 2015) received more than half million reported violations as of November 2016. In the US, authorities started tapping into smartphone recordings by releasing video-based reporting apps such as ICE Blackbox and Mobile Justice. Professor Lee said that the existing services cannot be used while driving, because none of the existing services support continuous video recording and safe event capturing behind the wheel.
Professor Lee’s team has been incorporating advanced computer vision techniques into Mobile Roadwatch for automatically capturing traffic violations and safety risks, including potholes and obstacles. The researchers will present their results in May at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2017) in Denver, CO, USA. Their research was supported by the KAIST-KUSTAR fund.
(Caption: A driver is trying to capture an event by touching a screen. The Mobile Radwatch supports continuous video recording and safe event captureing behind the wheel.)
2017.04.10 View 9810 -
IAMCOMPANY, an educational technology startup created by a KAIST student, featured online in EdSurge
EdSurge is a U.S.-based online news site focused on education and technology innovation, which published an article, dated August 12, 2014, on IAMCOMPANY (http://iamcompany.net), a startup created by a KAIST student, Inmo (Ryan) Chung.
The article introduced one of the company’s most popular and free smartphone applications called “IAMSCHOOL” that “funnels school announcements and class notices to parents’ smartphones using a format similar to Twitter and Google+.”
For more about IAMCOMPANY, please visit the link below:
EdSurge, August 12, 2014
“South Korea’s Biggest Educational Information App Plans Pan-Asian Expansion”
https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-08-12-south-korea-s-biggest-educational-information-app-plans-pan-asian-expansion
2014.08.19 View 7733