SRL Conference Papers

@inproceedings{matthewrunyonblakewillifordjulielinseytracyhammond2020AnIntelligentInterfaceforAutomaticGradingofSketchedFreeBodyDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Runyon, Matthew and Williford, Blake and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces},
  title =          {An Intelligent Interface for Automatic Grading of Sketched Free Body Diagrams},
  year =           {2020},
  month =          {March},
  address =        {Cagliari, Italy},
  note =           {DOI: https://doi/10.1145/3379336.3381471, \url{https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3379336.3381471}},
}

Sketching in perspective is a valuable skill for art, and for professional disciplines like industrial design, architecture, and engineering. However, it tends to be a difficult skill to grasp for novices. We have developed an algorithm that can classify rectilinear perspective strokes, as well as classify which of those strokes are accurate on a stroke-by-stroke basis. We also developed an intelligent user interface which can provide real-time accuracy feedback on a user’s free- hand digital perspective sketch. To evaluate the system, we conducted a between-subjects user study with 40 novice participants which involved sketching city street corners in 2-point perspective. We discovered that the participants who received real-time intelligent feedback improved their perspective accuracy significantly (p < 0.0005) in a subse- quent unassisted sketch, suggesting a mild learning effect and knowledge transfer. Through qualitative feedback we also derived principles for how intelligent real-time feedback can best assist novices in learning perspective.

@inproceedings{blakewillifordmatthewrunyontracyhammond2020RecognizingperspectiveaccuracyanintelligentuserinterfaceforassistingnovicesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Runyon, Matthew and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 25th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces},
  title =          {Recognizing perspective accuracy: an intelligent user interface for assisting novices},
  year =           {2020},
  month =          {March},
  address =        {Cagliari, Italy},
  note =           {DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3377325.3377511, \url{https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3377325.3377511}},
}

@inproceedings{paultaelejunginkohtracyhammond2020KanjiWorkbookAWritingBasedIntelligentTutoringSystemforLearningProperJapaneseKanjiWritingTechniquewithInstructorEmulatedAssessmentConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Koh, Jung In and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {The Thirty-Second Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI 2020). },
  title =          {Kanji Workbook: A Writing-Based Intelligent Tutoring System for Learning Proper Japanese Kanji Writing Technique with Instructor-Emulated Assessment. },
  year =           {2020},
  month =          {February},
  address =        {New York, NY, USA},
  note =           {\url{https://www.aaai.org/Papers/AAAI/2020GB/IAAI-TaeleP.199.pdf}},
}

@inproceedings{blakewillifordmatthewrunyonjoshcherianwaynelijulielinseytracyhammond2019AFrameworkforMotivatingSketchingPracticewithSketchbasedGameplayConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Runyon, Matthew and Cherian, Josh and Li, Wayne and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI PLAY ’19},
  title =          {A Framework for Motivating Sketching Practice with Sketch-based Gameplay},
  pages =          {533--544},
  year =           {2019},
  month =          {October},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Barcelona, Spain},
  note =           {\url{https://doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347175}},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondpaultaele2019SketchingCognitionandCreativityLeveragingSketchInterfacesforEnhancingCreativityandCognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Taele, Paul},
  booktitle =      { Proceedings of the 2019 Creativity and Cognition},
  title =          {Sketching Cognition and Creativity: Leveraging Sketch Interfaces for Enhancing Creativity and Cognition.},
  year =           {2019},
  month =          {June},
  address =        {San Diego, CA, USA},
  note =           {\url{https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3325480.3326552?casa\_token=DBr6-7kuHOYAAAAA%3AC5Z2MbCR6ybhLxL9RbR7lZr4ovhzMvVg1fZQbVHwo9\_CoqDxw-m4w1nzK7\_6LqCZWSxezJAzcw}},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondpaultaele2019SketchingCognitionandCreativityLeveragingSketchInterfacesforEnhancingCreativityandCognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Taele, Paul},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2019 on Creativity and Cognition},
  title =          {Sketching Cognition and Creativity: Leveraging Sketch Interfaces for Enhancing Creativity and Cognition},
  pages =          {708-713},
  year =           {2019},
  month =          {June},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {San Diego, USA},
}

@inproceedings{blakewillifordabhaydokemichelpahudkenhinckleytracyhammond2019DrawMyPhotoAssistingnovicesindrawingfromphotographsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Doke, Abhay and Pahud, Michel and Hinckley, Ken and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      { Proceedings of the 2019 Creativity and Cognition},
  title =          {DrawMyPhoto: Assisting novices in drawing from photographs},
  pages =          {198-209},
  year =           {2019},
  month =          {June},
  address =        {San Diego, CA, USA},
  note =           {\url{https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3325480.3325507}},
}

@inproceedings{ranierolaragardunotracyhammond20193DTrailMakingTestATouchTabletCognitiveTesttoSupportIntelligentBehavioralRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Lara Garduno, Raniero and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2019, (GI 2019) },
  title =          {3D-Trail-Making Test: A Touch-Tablet Cognitive Test to Support Intelligent Behavioral Recognition},
  year =           {2019},
  month =          {May},
  address =        {Kingston, Canada},
  note =           {DOI: 10.20380/GI2019.10, \url{https://graphicsinterface.org/proceedings/gi2019/gi2019-10/}},
}

@inproceedings{ethanhiltontaylorgamblewaynelitracyhammondjulielinsey2018BacktoBasicsSketchingNotCADistheKeytoImprovingEssentialEngineeringDesignSkillsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hilton, Ethan and Gamble, Taylor and Li, Wayne and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {ASME IDETC 2018-DTM},
  title =          {Back to Basics: Sketching, Not CAD, is the Key to Improving Essential Engineering Design Skills},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {August},
  address =        {Quebec City, Canada},
  note =           {DOI: 10.1115/DETC2018-86325, \url{http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/proceeding.aspx?articleid=2713706\&resultClick=3}},
}

Composing music typically requires years of music theory experience and knowledge that includes but is not limited to chord progression, melody composition theory, and an understanding of whole-step/half-step passing tones among others. For that reason, certain songwriters such as singers may find a necessity to hire experienced pianists to help compose their music. In order to facilitate the process for beginner and aspiring musicians, we have developed Lumanote, a music composition tool that aids songwriters by presenting real-time suggestions on appropriate melody notes and chord progression. While a preliminary evalu- ation yielded favorable results for beginners, many com- mented on the difficulty of having to map the note sugges- tions displayed on the on-screen interface to the physical keyboard they were playing on. This paper presents the resulting solution: an LED-based feedback system that is designed to be directly attached to any standard MIDI key- board. This peripheral aims to help map note suggestions directly to the physical keys of a musical keyboard. A study consisting of 22 individuals was conducted to compare the effectiveness of the new LED-based system with the existing computer interface, finding that the vast majority of users preferred the LED system. Three experienced musicians also judged and ranked the compositions, noting significant improvement in song quality when using either system, and citing comparable quality between compositions that used either interface.

@inproceedings{jamesgrangermateoavilesjoshuakirbyaustingriffinhongjunyoonranierolaragardunotracyhammond2018EvaluatingLEDbasedinterfaceforLumanotecompositioncreationtoolConferencePapers,
  author =         {Granger, James and Aviles, Mateo and Kirby, Joshua and Griffin, Austin and Yoon, Hong-Jun and Lara Garduno, Raniero and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2018)},
  title =          {Evaluating LED-based interface for Lumanote composition creation tool},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {June },
  address =        {Blacksburg, VA, USA},
  note =           {DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1302557},
}

@inproceedings{vijayrajannatracyhammond2018AFittsLawEvaluationofGazeInputonLargeDisplaysComparedtoTouchandMouseInputsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajanna, Vijay and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Communication by Gaze Interaction. COGAIN '18},
  title =          {A Fitts' Law Evaluation of Gaze Input on Large Displays Compared to Touch and Mouse Inputs},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {June},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Warsaw, Poland},
  note =           {\url{https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3206348}},
}

@inproceedings{tianshuchupaultaeletracyhammond2018SupportingChineseCharacterEducationalInterfaceswithRicherAssessmentFeedbackthroughSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Chu, Tianshu and Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Graphics Interface 2018 (GI 2018)},
  title =          {Supporting Chinese Character Educational Interfaces with Richer Assessment Feedback through Sketch Recognition},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {May},
  publisher =      {CHCCS/SCDHM},
  address =        {Toronto, Canada},
  note =           {\url{http://graphicsinterface.org/wp-content/uploads/gi2018-8.pdf}},
}

@inproceedings{xiaolidanielgoldbergtracyhammondxingchen2018PredictingAccidentProneRoadSegmentsUsingGISandDataMiningConferencePapers,
  author =         {Li, Xiao and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy and Chen, Xingchen},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 22nd International Research Symposium on Computer-based Cartography and GIScience (AutoCarto/UCGIS 2018)},
  title =          {Predicting Accident-Prone Road Segments Using GIS and Data Mining.},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {May},
  address =        {Madison, VI, USA},
}

@inproceedings{slonigerdakotasakariyarupendeguzmancarlomathewsjacobsusantoerwinjunginkohpaultaeletracyhammond2018TensaiASketchbasedEducationalGameforAssessingProperWritingofJapaneseWritingScriptsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Sloniger, Dakota and Sakariya, Rupen and De Guzman, Carlo and Mathews, Jacob and Susanto, Erwin and Koh, Jung In and Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Graphics Interface 2018 (GI 2018)},
  title =          {Tensai: A Sketch-based Educational Game for Assessing Proper Writing of Japanese Writing Scripts},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {May},
  publisher =      {CHCCS/SCDHM},
  address =        {Toronto, Canada},
}

@inproceedings{baileybaumanregangunhouseantoniajoneswillerdasilvashaeetashararvijayrajannajoshcherianjunginkohtracyhammond2018VisualEYEzeAWebbasedSolutionforReceivingFeedbackonArtworksThroughEyeTrackingConferencePapers,
  author =         {Bauman, Bailey and Gunhouse, Regan and Jones, Antonia and Da Silva, Willer and Sharar, Shaeeta and Rajanna, Vijay and Cherian, Josh and Koh, Jung In and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {IUI'18 23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces Tokyo, Japan. Web Intelligence and Interaction (WII) workshop},
  title =          {VisualEYEze: A Web-based Solution for Receiving Feedback on Artworks Through Eye-Tracking},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {March},
  publisher =      {IUI},
  address =        {Tokyo, Japan},
  note =           {\url{http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2068/wii4.pdf}},
}

@inproceedings{jamesgrangermateoavilesjoshuakirbyaustingriffinhongjunyoonranierolaragardunotracyhammond2018LumanoteARealTimeInteractiveMusicCompositionAssistantConferencePapers,
  author =         {Granger, James and Aviles, Mateo and Kirby, Joshua and Griffin, Austin and Yoon, Hong-Jun and Lara Garduno, Raniero and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {IUI 2018 Workshop on Intelligent Music Interfaces for Listening and Creation},
  title =          {Lumanote: A Real-Time Interactive Music Composition Assistant},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {March},
  publisher =      {IUI},
  address =        {Tokyo, Japan},
  note =           {\url{http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2068/milc8.pdf}},
}

Shoulder surfing enables an attacker to gain the authentication details of a victim through observations and is becoming a threat to visual privacy. We present DyGazePass: Dynamic Gaze Passwords, an authentication strategy that uses dynamic gaze gestures. We also present two authentication interfaces, a dynamic and a static-dynamic interface, that leverage this strategy to counter shoulder surfing attacks. The core idea is, a user authenticates by following uniquely colored circles that move along random paths on the screen. Through multiple evaluations, we discuss how the authentication accuracy varies with respect to transition speed of the circles, and the number of moving and static circles. Furthermore, we evaluate the resiliency of our authentication method against video analysis attacks by comparing it to a gaze- and PIN-based authentication system. Overall, we found that the static-dynamic interface with a transition speed of two seconds was the most effective authentication method with an accuracy of 97.5%.

@inproceedings{vijayrajannaadilhamidmallarahulashokbhagathtracyhammond2018DyGazePassAgazegesturebaseddynamicauthenticationsystemtocountershouldersurfingandvideoanalysisattacksConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajanna, Vijay and Malla, Adil and Bhagath, Rahul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA 2018)},
  title =          {DyGazePass: A gaze gesture-based dynamic authentication system to counter shoulder surfing and video analysis attacks},
  year =           {2018},
  month =          {January},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Singapore, Singapore},
  note =           {\url{https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8311458/}},
}

@inproceedings{adilhamidmallatracyhammond2018EyetrackingsingletechnologytohandlemultipledomainsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Malla, Adil and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      { International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Proceedings IUI. },
  title =          {Eye tracking-single technology to handle multiple domains},
  pages =          {677-678},
  year =           {2018},
  address =        {Tokyo, Japan},
}

@inproceedings{alexbermanleelagottumukkalazepenghuosethpolsleyfrancisquektracyhammond2017iCanTraceAvatarPersonalizationthroughSelfieSketchesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Berman, Alex and Gottumukkala, Leela and Huo, Zepeng and Polsley, Seth and Quek, Francis and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {11th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2017},
  title =          {iCanTrace: Avatar Personalization through Selfie Sketches},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {October 12-14,},
  publisher =      {PPTE},
  address =        {Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA},
}

@inproceedings{ethanhiltonblakewillifordwaynelitracyhammondjulielinsey2017TeachingEngineeringStudentsFreeHandSketchingwithanIntelligentTutoringSystemConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hilton, Ethan and Williford, Blake and Li, Wayne and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {11th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2017},
  title =          {Teaching Engineering Students Free-Hand Sketching with an Intelligent Tutoring System},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {October 12-14,},
  address =        {Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA},
}

@inproceedings{jorgecamaramatthewrunyontracyhammond2017Flow2CodeFromHandDrawnFlowchartstoCodeExecutionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Camara, Jorge Ivan and Runyon, Matthew and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {11th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2017},
  title =          {Flow2Code: From Hand-Drawn Flowcharts to Code Execution},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {October 12-14,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA},
}

@inproceedings{mariaisokpunwurandybrooksericmottblakewillifordmatthewrunyontracyhammond2017YouTryItSketchTivityPuttingtheAinSTEAMEducationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Isokpunwu, Maria and Brooks, Randy and Mott, Eric and Williford, Blake and Runyon, Matthew and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {11th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2017},
  title =          {You-Try-It: SketchTivity: Putting the "A" in STEAM Education},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {October 12-14,},
  address =        {Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA},
}

@inproceedings{savinaynarendrasheelabhadradeyjosiahcoadsethpolsleytracyhammond2017FREESTYLEASketchBasedWireFramingToolConferencePapers,
  author =         {Narendra, Savinay and Dey, Sheelabhadra and Coad, Josiah and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {11th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2017},
  title =          {FREESTYLE: A Sketch-Based Wire-Framing Tool},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {October 12-14,},
  address =        {Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA},
}

@inproceedings{blakewillifordmatthewrunyonadilhamidmallawaynelijulielinseytracyhammond2017ZenSketchASketchbasedGameForImprovingLineWorkConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Runyon, Matthew and Malla, Adil and Li, Wayne and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {The ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY), Student Game Design Competition},
  title =          {ZenSketch: A Sketch-based Game For Improving Line Work},
  pages =          {591-598},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {October 15-18,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Amsterdam, The Netherlands},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-5111-9, DOI: 10.1145/3130859.3130861, \url{https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3130861}Won First Place Jury Prize},
}

From improving spatial visualization skills to concept generation, sketching is both a useful practice and a powerful tool for engineering designers. The method of teaching free-hand sketching in engineering courses has changed little in recent decades as CAD programs become more prevalent. This paper discusses a new method of teaching free-hand sketching in engineering design using pedagogy borrowed from Industrial Design curricula focusing on perspective sketching. An experiment comparing pre- and post-course sketches shows how the perspective method and more traditional method of teaching sketching impact students' sketching ability. The experiment finds that students in the perspective-based sketching course are more likely to improve their sketching ability over the course of the semester. Observing improvements in sketching ability could lead to observations in correlations between sketching ability and other necessary skills in engineering design. These observations could greatly impact our understanding of successful designers and how to train students in engineering design courses.

@inproceedings{ethanhiltonmyelapaigeblakewillifordwaynelitracyhammondjulielinsey2017ImprovingthesketchingabilityofengineeringdesignstudentsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hilton, Ethan and Paige, Myela and Williford, Blake and Li, Wayne and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED)},
  title =          {Improving the sketching ability of engineering design students},
  volume =         {9: Design Education},
  pages =          {217-224},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {August 21-25},
  publisher =      {The Design Society},
  address =        {Vancouver, BC, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-904670-97-1},
}

In this study, we present a novel application of sketch gesture recognition on eye-movement for biometric identification and estimating task expertise. The study was performed for the task of mammographic screening with simultaneous viewing of four coordinated breast views as typically done in clinical practice. Eye-tracking data and diagnostic decisions collected for 100 mammographic cases (25 normal, 25 benign, 50 malignant) and 10 readers (three board certified radiologists and seven radiology residents), formed the corpus for this study. Sketch gesture recognition techniques were employed to extract geometric and gesture-based features from saccadic eye-movements. Our results show that saccadic eye-movement, characterized using sketch-based features, result in more accurate models for predicting individual identity and level of expertise than more traditional eye-tracking features.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondgeorgiatourassihongjunyoonfolamialamudun2017GeometryandGesturebasedFeaturesfromSaccadicEyeMovementasaBiometricinRadiologyConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Tourassi, Georgia and Yoon, Hong-Jun and Alamudun, Folami},
  booktitle =      {19th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction},
  title =          {Geometry and Gesture-based Features from Saccadic Eye-Movement as a Biometric in Radiology},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {July},
  publisher =      {Springer},
  address =        {Vancouver, Canada},
}

Design sketching is a powerful tool for expressing ideas from pen and paper effectively and becoming a more well-rounded communicator. Sketching instructors conventionally employ pen and paper in their classrooms to convey these fundamentals to students. However this traditional approach limits the bandwidth and capability of instructors to give timely and individualized feedback. An intelligent tutoring system can leverage the knowledge of domain expert design sketching instructors so that students can practice and receive real-time feedback outside of classroom hours. Our system leverages consulted instructor insights and observed pedagogical practices of an active university design sketching curriculum, and applies them in a mastery-based progression of exercises that utilize sketch recognition to give real-time feedback. An evaluation of our system's usability in a class of engineering students studying design sketching showed that it performed very well, was seen by the students as a motivating and intuitive practice tool, and allowed the students to improve the accuracy and speed of their sketches.

@inproceedings{swarnakeshavabhotlablakewillifordethanhiltonpaultaelewaynelijulielinseytracyhammond2017ConqueringtheCubeLearningtoSketchPrimitivesinPerspectivewithanIntelligentTutoringSystemConferencePapers,
  author =         {Keshavabhotla, Swarna and Williford, Blake and Hilton, Ethan and Taele, Paul and Li, Wayne and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {SBIM '17 Proceedings of the Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling},
  title =          {Conquering the Cube: Learning to Sketch Primitives in Perspective with an Intelligent Tutoring System},
  volume =         {2},
  pages =          {1-11},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {July 29-30},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Los Angeles, CA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-5079-2, DOI: 10.1145/3092907.3092911},
}

Research has often found that sketching during the design process is a vital tool for communication, idea-generation, and problem solving. Sketching has also been found to be beneficial in developing key skills such as spatial visualization. However, as CAD programs become more prevalent, research has shown that students do not use sketching as often, and fail to use it when it is needed such as for free-body diagrams and to quickly illustrate engineering design concepts. In contrast, sketching and visualization is a noted skill often employed by professional designers and engineers. In recent years, an introduction to engineering visualization course at [a university] has modified the portion of the class dedicated to hand-sketching using pedagogy commonly used in industrial design courses to develop students’ sketching ability and visualization skills. The modified curriculum for teaching sketching education involves instruction on techniques such as sketching in both isometric and perspective spaces, shading, and using proper lighting. Universities face many challenges in implementing this sketching pedagogy including the fact that engineering faculty are typically not familiar with sketching pedagogy and lack training in realistic, quick, perspective product sketch. Even when there are faculty with the appropriate skills, large enrollments severely limit the quality of feedback given to students. To remedy these issues and to provide further insights into AI tools that can interpret sketched-diagrams, an online sketching tutor was developed. This sketching tutor provides real-time feedback using sketch recognition software, allowing the student to continuously improve their technique with less instructor interaction. This paper presents the impacts of the modified curriculum on students’ ability to sketch, self-efficacy in engineering design, and spatial visualization skills. The study compares three different approaches, (1) a traditional engineering sketching curriculum, (2) a perspective sketching curriculum, and (3) a perspective sketching curriculum with the sketch recognition software. Impact was measured using a pre- and post-course assessment of students using the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Tests- Rotation, a variation of the Vandenburg and Kuse Mental Rotation Test, and Design Self-Efficacy by Carberry, et al. Spatial visualization skills have been demonstrated to be critical for student retention in engineering and for many engineering tasks. The assessment also included a standardized sketching quiz. The pre-to-post comparisons of the three conditions showed equal improvements in the spatial visualization and design self-efficacy of the students. However, when only observing students who were initially low-scoring on the spatial visualization assessments, the improvements of students in the modified perspective sketching curriculum were significantly higher than students in the more traditional engineering drawing approach. As expected, the improvements in sketching ability of the students in the modified perspective curricula were higher than the improvements experienced by students in the traditional curriculum. These findings suggest that the modified perspective sketching curriculum maintains the critical spatial visualization skills, which are effectively taught with the traditional engineering curriculum, while also introducing an additional skill without requiring additional student time.

@inproceedings{ethanhiltonmyelapaigeblakewillifordwaynelitracyhammondjulielinsey2017EngineeringdrawingforthenextgenerationStudentsgainingadditionalskillsinthesametimeframeConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hilton, Ethan and Paige, Myela and Williford, Blake and Li, Wayne and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference (ASEE)},
  title =          {Engineering drawing for the next generation: Students gaining additional skills in the same timeframe},
  volume =         {Board \# 52: Engineering Drawing for the Next Generation: Students Gaining Additional Skills in the Same Timeframe},
  pages =          {1-12},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {June 24-28},
  publisher =      {ASEE},
  address =        {Columbus, OH, USA},
  note =           {\url{https://peer.asee.org/27874}},
}

Sketching is a powerful method for exploring ideas and communicating those ideas to others in disciplines like design, engineering, and education. Conventional pedagogy for teaching this skill has limitations in terms of instructor bandwidth, individualized feedback, and students who struggle with low motivation and self-efficacy. The skill itself has been abandoned in the curricula of many disciplines. An intelligent tutoring system can leverage sketching pedagogy to give students personalized feedback outside of classroom hours, which can potentially improve self-efficacy, motivation, and creativity in the students. Additionally, such a system can allow for curricula that have abandoned drafting and free-hand sketching to once again include it as a fundamental skill for students to learn. We have built a system called SketchTivity which includes intelligent interactive lessons, challenges, and games that teach sketching fundamentals. We have deployed the software in design and engineering courses over the past two years and have found it to be an effective system that can improve students’ sketching ability in dimensions like accuracy, line quality, and speed. Ongoing work will be focused on developing more advanced lessons, creative challenges, and measuring more nuanced effects of the system on students.

@inproceedings{blakewillifordwaynelijulielinseytracyhammond2017EveryoneCanSketchRevivingHanddrawnSketchingwithanIntelligentTutoringSystemConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Li, Wayne and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Extended Abstract for Workshop SketchingDIS: Hand-drawn Sketching in HCI workshop at Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ’17).},
  title =          {Everyone Can Sketch: Reviving Hand-drawn Sketching with an Intelligent Tutoring System},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {June 10},
  publisher =      {DIS},
  address =        {Scotland, United Kindom},
  note =           {\url{https://sketchingdis.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/williford-et-al\_everyone-can-sketch.pdf}},
}

Previous studies have shown that failing to regularly brush one's teeth can have a surprisingly serious health consequences, from periodontal disease to coronary heart disease to pancreatic cancer. This problem is especially worrying when caring for the elderly and/or individuals with dementia, as they often forget to or are unable to perform standard health activities such as brushing their teeth. To ensure that such individuals are correctly looked after they are placed under the supervision of caretakers or family members, simultaneously limiting their independence and placing an immense burden on their family members or caretakers. To address this problem we developed a non-invasive wearable system based on a single wrist-mounted accelerometer to accurately identify when a person brushed their teeth. We tested the efficacy of our system with a month-long in-the-wild study, and achieved an accuracy of 94% and an F-measure of 0.82.

@inproceedings{joshcherianvijayrajannadanielgoldbergtracyhammond2017DidyouRememberToBrushANoninvasiveWearableApproachtoRecognizingBrushingTeethforElderlyCareConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cherian, Josh and Rajanna, Vijay and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare},
  title =          {Did you Remember To Brush? : A Noninvasive Wearable Approach to Recognizing Brushing Teeth for Elderly Care},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {May 23-26,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Barcelona, Spain},
  note =           {DOI: 10.1145/3154862.3154866, \url{https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3154866}},
}

Shoulder-surfing is the act of spying on an authorized user of a computer system with the malicious intent of gaining unauthorized access. Current solutions to address shoulder-surfing such as graphical passwords, gaze input, tactile interfaces, and so on are limited by low accuracy, lack of precise gaze-input, and susceptibility to video analysis attack. We present an intelligent gaze gesture-based system that authenticates users from their unique gaze patterns onto moving geometric shapes. The system authenticates the user by comparing their scan-path with each shapes' paths and recognizing the closest path. In a study with 15 users, authentication accuracy was found to be 99% with true calibration and 96% with disturbed calibration. Also, our system is 40% less susceptible and nearly nine times more time-consuming to video analysis attacks compared to a gaze- and PIN-based authentication system.

@inproceedings{vijayrajannapaultaelesethpolsleytracyhammond2017AGazeGestureBasedUserAuthenticationSystemtoCounterShoulderSurfingAttacksConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajanna, Vijay and Taele, Paul and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '17) Extended Abstracts, Late Breaking Results},
  title =          {A Gaze Gesture-Based User Authentication System to Counter Shoulder-Surfing Attacks},
  pages =          {1978-1986},
  year =           {2017},
  month =          {May 6-11},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Denver, CO, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-4656-6/17/05, \url{http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3027063.3053070}},
}

@inproceedings{folamialamuduntracyhammondhongjunyoongeorgiatourassi2017GeometryandgesturebasedfeaturesfromsaccadiceyemovementasabiometricinradiologyConferencePapers,
  author =         {Alamudun, Folami and Hammond, Tracy and Yoon, Hong-Jun and Tourassi, Georgia},
  booktitle =      {Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics). 10284 123-138.},
  title =          {Geometry and gesture-based features from saccadic eye-movement as a biometric in radiology.},
  pages =          {123-138},
  year =           {2017},
}

Continued improvements and rising ubiquity in touchscreen and motion-sensing technologies enable users to leverage mid-air input modalities for intelligent surface sketching into the third dimension. How- ever, existing approaches largely either focus on constrained 3D gesture sets, require specialized hardware setups, or do not deviate beyond surface sketching assumptions. We present InvisiShapes, a recognition system for users to sketch 3D geometric primitives in continuous interaction spaces that explore surfaces and mid-air environments. Our system leverages a collection of sketch and gesture recognition techniques and heuristics and takes advantage of easily accessible computing hardware for users to incorporate depth to their sketches. From our interaction study and user evaluations, we observed that our system successfully accomplishes strong recognition and intuitive interaction capabilities on collected sketch+motion data and interactive sketching scenarios, respectively.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2017InvisiShapesARecognitionSystemforSketched3DPrimitivesinContinuousInteractionSpacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {2015 International Symposium on Smart Graphics},
  title =          {InvisiShapes: A Recognition System for Sketched 3D Primitives in Continuous Interaction Spaces},
  pages =          {63-74},
  year =           {2017},
}

@inproceedings{joshcheriandanielgoldbergtracyhammond2016SensingDaytoDayActivitiesthroughWearableSensorsandAIConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cherian, Josh and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Workshop on Analysis of Movement Data (GIScience 2016)},
  title =          {Sensing Day-to-Day Activities through Wearable Sensors and AI},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {September 27},
  address =        {Montreal, Canada},
}

Design sketching is an important and versatile skill for engineering students to master. Through it, students translate their design thoughts effectively onto a visual medium, whether to produce hand-drawn sketches onto paper, seamlessly interact with intelligent sketch-based modeling interfaces, or reap the advantages of educational benefits associated with drawing in general. Traditional instructional approaches for teaching design sketching are frequently constrained by the availability of experienced human instructors or the lack of supervised learning from self- practice, while relevant intelligent educational applications for sketch instruction have focused more on assessing users’ art drawings or cognitive developmental progress. In this paper, we introduce an intelligent pen-based computing educational application that not only teaches engineering students how to hone and practice their design sketching skills through stylus-and-touchscreen interaction, but also aide their motivation and self-regulated learning through real-time feedback.

@inproceedings{wayneliethanhiltontracyhammondjulielinsey2016PersketchtivityAnIntelligentPenBasedOnlineEducationPlatformforSketchingInstructionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Li, Wayne and Hilton, Ethan and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {Electronic Visualisation and the Arts (EVA 2016)},
  title =          {Persketchtivity: An Intelligent Pen-Based Online Education Platform for Sketching Instruction},
  pages =          {133-141},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {July 12-14},
  publisher =      {BCS},
  address =        {London, England},
  note =           {\url{http://dx.doi.org/10.14236/ewic/EVA2016.28}},
}

@inproceedings{aqibbhatchristymariamathewgirishkasiviswanathansethpolsleytracyhammond2016AnIntelligentSketchingInterfaceforEducationusingGeographicInformationSystemsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Bhat, Aqib and Mathew, Christy and Kasiviswanathan, Girish Kumar and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {10th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2016},
  title =          {An Intelligent Sketching Interface for Education using Geographic Information Systems},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {March 31,},
  address =        {Brown University, Providence, RI, USA},
}

@inproceedings{randybrookstracyhammondjunginkoh2016ScoreImprovementDistributionWhenUsingSketchRecognitionSoftwareMechanixasaTutorAssessmentofHighSchoolClassroomPilotConferencePapers,
  author =         {Brooks, Randy and Hammond, Tracy and Koh, Jung In},
  booktitle =      {10th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2016},
  title =          {Score Improvement Distribution When Using Sketch Recognition Software (Mechanix) as a Tutor: Assessment of High School Classroom Pilot},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {March 31,},
  address =        {Brown University, Providence, RI, USA},
}

@inproceedings{caiomonteiromeenakshinarayanansethpolsleytracyhammond2016AMultilingualSketchbasedSudokuGamewithRealtimeRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Caio, Monteiro and Narayanan, Meenakshi and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {10th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2016},
  title =          {A Multilingual Sketch-based Sudoku Game with Real-time Recognition},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {March 31,},
  address =        {Brown University, Providence, RI, USA},
}

@inproceedings{randybrookstracyhammond2016YouTryItMechanixVectorAnalysisDeploymentinHighSchoolConferencePapers,
  author =         {Brooks, Randy and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {10th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2016},
  title =          {You-Try-It: Mechanix Vector Analysis Deployment in High School},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {March 31,},
  address =        {Brown University, Providence, RI, USA},
}

@inproceedings{shuomayongbinsunpengchenlyusethpolsleytracyhammond2016DCSRADigitalCircuitSketchRecognitionSystemforEducationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Ma, Shuo and Sun, Yongbin and Lyu, Pengchen and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {10th Conference on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. CPTTE 2016},
  title =          {DCSR: A Digital Circuit Sketch Recognition System for Education},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {March 31,},
  address =        {Brown University, Providence, RI, USA},
}

Our objective is to improve understanding of visuo-cognitive behavior in screening mammography under clinically equivalent experimental conditions. To this end, we examined pupillometric data, acquired using a head-mounted eye-tracking device, from 10 image readers (three breast-imaging radiologists and seven Radiology residents), and their corresponding diagnostic decisions for 100 screening mammograms. The corpus of mammograms comprised cases of varied pathology and breast parenchymal density. We investigated the relationship between pupillometric fluctuations, experienced by an image reader during mammographic screening, indicative of changes in mental workload, the pathological characteristics of a mammographic case, and the image readers’ diagnostic decision and overall task performance. To answer these questions, we extract features from pupillometric data, and additionally applied time series shapelet analysis to extract discriminative patterns in changes in pupil dilation. Our results show that pupillometric measures are adequate predictors of mammographic case pathology, and image readers’ diagnostic decision and performance with an average accuracy of 80%.

@inproceedings{folamialamudunhongjunyoontracyhammondkathleenhudsongarnettamorinducotegeorgiatourassi2016ShapeletanalysisofpupildilationformodelingvisuocognitivebehaviorinscreeningmammographyConferencePapers,
  author =         {Alamudun, Folami and Yoon, Hong-Jun and Hammond, Tracy and Hudson, Kathleen and Morin-Ducote, Garnetta and Tourassi, Georgia},
  booktitle =      {Proc. SPIE 9787, Medical Imaging 2016: Image Perception, Observer Performance, and Technology Assessment, 97870M (March 24, 2016)},
  title =          {Shapelet analysis of pupil dilation for modeling visuo-cognitive behavior in screening mammography},
  volume =         {9787},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {February 27,},
  publisher =      {SPIE},
  address =        {San Diego, CA},
}

Numerous studies have found sketching to be a useful skill for engineers. Sketching has been found to improve spatial visualization skills and help increase creativity in the design process. Therefore, in recent semesters, there has been a push to further develop the sketching instruction at Georgia Tech. This development has included introducing different methods of sketching, such as perspective sketching, and introducing new tools, such as sketch-based online tutoring applications. However, a consistent, trusted method to accurately evaluate students’ sketching ability does not yet exist. This study outlines the first steps taken to create a rubric that can be used to create consistent evaluations of students’ sketching abilities. A reliable and valid rubric will allow for evaluation of different methods of sketching education as well as to help to determine the links between sketching ability and other skills such as design reasoning, creativity in idea generation, and self-efficacy.

@inproceedings{ethanhiltonblakewillifordwaynelierinmctiguetracyhammondjulielinsey2016ConsistentlyevaluatingsketchingabilityinengineeringcurriculumConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hilton, Ethan and Williford, Blake and Li, Wayne and McTigue, Erin and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {4th ICDC, International Conference on Design and creativity},
  title =          {Consistently evaluating sketching ability in engineering curriculum},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {November 4, },
  publisher =      {The Design Society},
  address =        {Atlanta, GA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-904670-82-7},
}

@inproceedings{purnendukaulvijayrajannatracyhammond2016ExploringUsersPerceivedActivitiesinaSketchbasedIntelligentTutoringSystemThroughEyeMovementDataConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kaul, Purnendu and Rajanna, Vijay and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {ACM Symposium on Applied Perception (SAP '16)},
  title =          {Exploring Users' Perceived Activities in a Sketch-based Intelligent Tutoring System Through Eye Movement Data},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {July 22-23,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Anaheim, CA, USA},
}

Children’s fine motor skills are associated with enhanced drawing skills, as well as improved creativity, self-regulation skills, and school readiness. Assessing these skills enables parents and teachers to target areas of improvement for their children, so that they are better prepared for learning and achieving once they enter school. Conventional approaches rely on psychology-based tracing and drawing tasks using pencil-and-paper and performance metrics such as timing and accuracies. However, such approaches involve human experts to manually score children’s drawings and evaluate their fine motor skills, which is both time consuming and prone to human error or bias. This paper introduces our novel sketch-based educational interface, which can classify children’s fine motor skills more accurately than conventional methods by automatically classifying fine motor skills through sketch recognition techniques. The interface (1) employs a fine motor skill classifier, which decides children’s fine motor skills based on their drawing skills and (2) includes a pedagogical system that assists children to draw basic shapes such as alphabet letters or numbers based on developmental level and learning progress, and provides teachers and parents within formation on the maturity of the children’s fine motor skills that correspond to their school readiness. We evaluated both our interface and “star drawing test" with 70 children (3-8 years), and found that our interface determined children’s fine motor skills more accurately than the conventional approach. In addition to the fine motor skill assessment, our interface served as an educational tool that benefited children in teaching them how to draw, practice, and improve their drawing skills.

@inproceedings{honghoekimpaultaelehwaryoungjinsilseojeffreyliewtracyhammond2016ANovelSketchBasedInterfaceforImprovingChildrensFineMotorSkillsandSchoolReadinessConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kim, Hong-Hoe (Ayden) and Taele, Paul and Seo, Hwaryoung and Liew, Jeffrey and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling},
  title =          {A Novel Sketch-Based Interface for Improving Children’s Fine Motor Skills and School Readiness},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {May},
  publisher =      {SBIM},
  address =        {Lisbon, Portugal},
}

Recent developments in eye tracking technology are paving the way for gaze-driven interaction as the primary interaction modality. Despite successful efforts, existing solutions to the "Midas Touch" problem have two inherent issues: 1) lower accuracy, and 2) visual fatigue that are yet to be addressed. In this work we present GAWSCHI: a Gaze-Augmented, Wearable-Supplemented Computer-Human Interaction framework that enables accurate and quick gaze-driven interactions, while being completely immersive and hands-free. GAWSCHI uses an eye tracker and a wearable device (quasi-mouse) that is operated with the user's foot, specifically the big toe. The system was evaluated with a comparative user study involving 30 participants, with each participant performing eleven predefined interaction tasks (on MS Windows 10) using both mouse and gaze-driven interactions. We found that gaze-driven interaction using GAWSCHI is as good (time and precision) as mouse-based interaction as long as the dimensions of the interface element are above a threshold (0.60" x 0.51"). In addition, an analysis of NASA Task Load Index post-study survey showed that the participants experienced low mental, physical, and temporal demand; also achieved a high performance. We foresee GAWSCHI as the primary interaction modality for the physically challenged and a means of enriched interaction modality for the able-bodied demographics.

@inproceedings{vijayrajannatracyhammond2016GAWSCHIGazeAugmentedWearableSupplementedComputerHumanInteractionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajanna, Vijay and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Symposium on Eye Tracking Research and Applications (ETRA '16)},
  title =          {GAWSCHI: Gaze-Augmented, Wearable-Supplemented Computer-Human Interaction},
  pages =          {233-236},
  year =           {2016},
  month =          {March 14-16,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Charleston, South Carolina, USA},
}

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2015BopoNotoAnintelligentsketcheducationapplicationforlearningzhuyinphoneticscriptConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings - DMS 2015: 21st International Conference on Distributed Multimedia Systems
},
  title =          {BopoNoto: An intelligent sketch education application for learning zhuyin phonetic script},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {September},
  address =        {Vancouver, Canada},
  note =           {\url{https://doi.org/10.18293/DMS2015-031}},
}

@inproceedings{blakewillifordtrevornelliganpaultaelewaynelijulielinseytracyhammond2015PerSketchTivityAnIntelligentPenBasedEducationalApplicationforDesignSketchingInstructionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Nelligan, Trevor and Taele, Paul and Li, Wayne and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {PerSketchTivity: An Intelligent Pen-Based Educational Application for Design Sketching Instruction},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{blakewillifordtrevornelligansethpolsleytracyhammondwaynelijulielinsey2015YouTryItPerSketchTivityLearningtoDrawintheDigitalEraConferencePapers,
  author =         {Williford, Blake and Nelligan, Trevor and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy and Li, Wayne and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {You-Try-It PerSketchTivity: Learning to Draw in the Digital Era},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{jaideepraysethpolsleytrevornelliganmichaelhelmsjulielinseytracyhammond2015YouTryItMechanixTouchInteractiveStaticsTutorConferencePapers,
  author =         {Ray, Jaideep and Polsley, Seth and Nelligan, Trevor and Helms, Michael and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {You-Try-It Mechanix: Touch-Interactive Statics Tutor},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2015AnIntelligentSketchBasedEducationalInterfaceforLearningComplexWrittenEastAsianConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {An Intelligent Sketch-Based Educational Interface for Learning Complex Written East Asian},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{ranierolaragardunotracyhammond2015YouTryItSmartStrokesDigitizingPaperBasedNeuropsychologicalTestsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Lara Garduno, Raniero and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {You-Try-It SmartStrokes: Digitizing Paper-Based Neuropsychological Tests},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{sethpolsleyjaideepraytrevornelliganmichaelhelmsjulielinseytracyhammond2015LeveragingTrendsinStudentInteractiontoEnhancetheEffectivenessofSketchBasedEducationalSoftwareConferencePapers,
  author =         {Polsley, Seth and Ray, Jaideep and Nelligan, Trevor and Helms, Michael and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {Leveraging Trends in Student Interaction to Enhance the Effectiveness of Sketch-Based Educational Software},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{stephanievalentinetracyhammond2015YouTryItKidGabASketchBasedSocialNetworkforTeachingHealthySocialNetworkingHabitsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Valentine, Stephanie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {9th Workshop on Pen and Touch Technology in Education. WPTTE 2015},
  title =          {You-Try-It KidGab: A Sketch-Based Social Network for Teaching Healthy Social Networking Habits},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {April 28-30,},
  address =        {Microsoft Campus, Redmond, WA, USA},
}

Using Natural Sketch Recognition Software to Provide Instant Feedback on Statics Homework: Assessment of a Classroom PilotDespite the importance of hand-sketched Free Body Diagrams for engineering education and practice, large class sizes often prevent detailed feedback on such diagrams. Relatively recently computing technology has become powerful enough to enable rapid and plentiful feedback on hand-sketched engineering diagrams. Researchers have recently developed the free “Mechanix”sketch recognition tutoring system for free body diagrams (FBDs) and trusses which provides intelligent and immediate feedback.This paper will describe the process and results of piloting this software at a primarily undergraduate university with approximately 40 students enrolled in a Statics class, contrasted with a control group. Results will include attitudes towards technology, online homework scores, test scores, and self-reported perceptions of the effectiveness of the sketch-recognition software. Preliminary results look very positive, and the full paper will include a detailed data analysis of both quantitative learning outcomes and qualitative comments from users.

@inproceedings{matthewgreenbenjamincaldwellmichaelhelmsjulielinseytracyhammond2015UsingNaturalSketchRecognitionSoftwaretoProvideInstantFeedbackonStaticsHomeworkTrussFreeBodyDiagramsAssessmentofaClassroomPilotConferencePapers,
  author =         {Green, Matthew and Caldwell, Benjamin and Helms, Michael and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {2015 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition},
  title =          {Using Natural Sketch Recognition Software to Provide Instant Feedback on Statics Homework (Truss Free Body Diagrams): Assessment of a Classroom Pilot},
  pages =          {26.1671.1 - 26.1671.12},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {June 14,},
  publisher =      {ASEE},
  address =        {Seattle, WA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-0-692-50180-1},
}

At the university level, high enrollment numbers in classes can be overwhelming for professors and teaching assistants to manage. Grading assignments and tests for hundreds of students is time consuming and has led towards a push for software-based learning in large university classes. Unfortunately, traditional quantitative question-and-answer mechanisms are often not sufficient for STEM courses, where there is a focus on problem-solving techniques over finding the right answers. Working through problems by hand can be important in memory retention, so in order for software learning systems to be effective in STEM courses, they should be able to intelligently understand students sketches. Mechanix is a sketch-based system that allows students to step through problems designed by their instructors with personalized feedback and optimized interface controls. Optimizations like color-coding, menu bar simplification, and tool consolidation are recent improvements in Mechanix that further the aim to engage and motivate students in learning.

@inproceedings{trevornelligansethpolsleyjaideepraymichaelhelmsjulielinseytracyhammond2015MechanixASketchBasedEducationalInterfaceConferencePapers,
  author =         {Nelligan, Trevor and Polsley, Seth and Ray, Jaideep and Helms, Michael and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2015)},
  title =          {Mechanix: A Sketch-Based Educational Interface},
  pages =          {53-56},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {March 29-1},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Atlanta, Georgia, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-3308-5},
}

Advances in ubiquitous computing technology improve workplace productivity, reduce physical exertion, but ultimately result in a sedentary work style. Sedentary behavior is associated with an increased risk of stress, obesity, and other health complications. Let Me Relax is a fully automated sedentary-state recognition framework using a smartwatch and smartphone, which encourages mental wellness through interventions in the form of simple relaxation techniques. The system was evaluated through a comparative user study of 22 participants split into a test and a control group. An analysis of NASA Task Load Index pre- and post- study survey revealed that test subjects who followed relaxation methods, showed a trend of both increased activity as well as reduced mental stress. Reduced mental stress was found even in those test subjects that had increased inactivity. These results suggest that repeated interventions, driven by an intelligent activity recognition system, is an effective strategy for promoting healthy habits, which reduce stress, anxiety, and other health risks associated with sedentary workplaces.

@inproceedings{vijayrajannafolamialamudundanielgoldbergtracyhammond2015LetMeRelaxTowardAutomatedSedentaryStateRecognitionandUbiquitousMentalWellnessSolutionsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajanna, Vijay and Alamudun, Folami and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {MobiHealth 2015 - 5th EAI International Conference on Wireless Mobile Communication and Healthcare - Transforming healthcare through innovations in mobile and wireless technologies},
  title =          {Let Me Relax: Toward Automated Sedentary State Recognition and Ubiquitous Mental Wellness Solutions},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {October 14-16,},
  address =        {London, Great Britain},
}

The continuous progress from machine-oriented languages to human-oriented interfaces has given rise to a specific research field devoted to investigate human-computer interaction (HCI). Since its birth, the results it achieved have created new possibilities for applications of wider and wider diffusion, which however are often hindered by the so-called "digital divide". Digital divide entails two distinct gaps. One is technological and economical in its nature, when special equipment and connections are required. The other one is cultural, entailing the difficulties encountered by the so called "digital immigrants" with respect to "digital natives" in adapting to the digital society and to its required abilities and skills. Nowadays, HCI studies have a special focus on closing both gaps, aiming at designing applications that are less demanding under both points of view. At the same time, new possibilities are also offered to users with special needs, who cannot be effectively supported by traditional interfaces. The topics HCI deals with range from general principles to more and more specialized areas, where specific requirements can be derived from new ways of addressing everyday activities, and drive research and design. On the one hand, the general aim is to increase both expressive richness and usability of human-computer interfaces at the same time. On the other hand, accessibility, cultural heritage, interaction for children are only some popular examples of application fields considered in HCI research. In an orthogonal way, the development of new trends follows different lines according to the specific communities addressed by the applications. In this way, personal and social interaction alternate and complement each other in new digital scenarios.

@inproceedings{sriharishvangavoluhaydenwoodjosephnewmansethpolsleytracyhammond2015FrontierADirectedGraphSystemforWebNavigationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Vangavolu, Sriharish and Wood, Hayden and Newman, Joseph and Polsley, Seth and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHItaly 2015. 11th biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter},
  title =          {Frontier: A Directed Graph System for Web Navigation},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {September 28-30,},
  address =        {Rome, Italy},
}

Learning music theory not only has practical benefits for musicians to write, perform, understand, and express music better, but also for both non-musicians to improve critical thinking, math analytical skills, and music appreciation. However, current external tools applicable for learning music theory through writing when human instruction is unavailable are either limited in feedback, lacking a written modality, or assuming already strong familiarity of music theory concepts. In this paper, we describe Maestoso, an educational tool for novice learners to learn music theory through sketching practice of quizzed music structures. Maestoso first automatically recognizes students’ sketched input of quizzed concepts, then relies on existing sketch and gesture recognition techniques to automatically recognize the input, and finally generates instructor-emulated feedback. From our evaluations, we demonstrate that Maestoso performs reasonably well on recognizing music structure elements and that novice students can comfortably grasp introductory music theory in a single session.

@inproceedings{paultaelelaurabarretotracyhammond2015MaestosoAnIntelligentEducationalSketchingToolforLearningMusicTheoryConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Barreto, Laura and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {The Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence at AAAI (IAAI 2015)},
  title =          {Maestoso: An Intelligent Educational Sketching Tool for Learning Music Theory},
  pages =          {7 pages},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {January 27-29,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Austin, Texas, USA},
}

Continued improvements and rising ubiquity in touchscreen and motion-sensing technologies enable users to leverage mid-air input modalities for intelligent surface sketching into the third dimension. How- ever, existing approaches largely either focus on constrained 3D gesture sets, require specialized hardware setups, or do not deviate beyond surface sketching assumptions. We present InvisiShapes, a recognition system for users to sketch 3D geometric primitives in continuous interaction spaces that explore surfaces and mid-air environments. Our system leverages a collection of sketch and gesture recognition techniques and heuristics and takes advantage of easily accessible computing hardware for users to incorporate depth to their sketches. From our interaction study and user evaluations, we observed that our system successfully accomplishes strong recognition and intuitive interaction capabilities on collected sketch+motion data and interactive sketching scenarios, respectively.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2015InvisiShapesARecognitionSystemforSketched3DPrimitivesinContinuousInteractionSpacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {2015 International Symposium on Smart Graphics},
  title =          {InvisiShapes: A Recognition System for Sketched 3D Primitives in Continuous Interaction Spaces},
  year =           {2015},
  month =          {August 26-28,},
  address =        {Chengdu, China},
}

@inproceedings{honghoekimstephanievalentinepaultaeletracyhammond2014EasySketchASketchBasedFineMotorSkillRecognizingEducationalInterfaceforChildrenEmergingTechnologyResearchStrandConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kim, Hong-Hoe (Ayden) and Valentine, Stephanie and Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Workshop on the Impact of Pen \& Touch Technology on Education (WIPTTE)},
  title =          {EasySketch: A Sketch-Based Fine Motor Skill Recognizing Educational Interface for Children Emerging Technology Research Strand},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {March 12-15,},
  address =        {Texas A\&M University, College Station, TX, USA},
}

@inproceedings{dwayneraymondjeffreyliewtracyhammond2014AVisionforEducationTransformingHowFormalSystemsareTaughtwithinMassLecturebyusingPenTechnologytoCreateaPersonalizedLearningEnvironmentConferencePapers,
  author =         {Raymond, Dwayne and Liew, Jeffrey and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Workshop on the Impact of Pen \\& Touch Technology on Education (WIPTTE)},
  title =          {A Vision for Education: Transforming How Formal Systems are Taught within Mass Lecture by using Pen Technology to Create a Personalized Learning Environment},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {March 12-15,},
  address =        {Texas A\&M University, College Station, TX, USA},
}

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2014EnhancingInstructionofWrittenEastAsianLanguageswithSketchRecognitionBasedIntelligentLanguageWorkbookInterfacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Workshop on the Impact of Pen \\& Touch Technology on Education (WIPTTE)},
  title =          {Enhancing Instruction of Written East Asian Languages with Sketch Recognition-Based Intelligent Language Workbook Interfaces},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {March 12-15,},
  address =        {Texas A\&M University, College Station, TX, USA},
}

@inproceedings{stephanievalentineranierolaragardunojulielinseytracyhammond2014MechanixASketchBasedTutoringSystemthatAutomaticallyCorrectsHandSketchedStaticsHomeworkConferencePapers,
  author =         {Valentine, Stephanie and Lara Garduno, Raniero and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Workshop on the Impact of Pen \\& Touch Technology on Education (WIPTTE)},
  title =          {Mechanix: A Sketch-Based Tutoring System that Automatically Corrects Hand-Sketched Statics Homework},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {March 12-15,},
  address =        {Texas A\&M University, College Station, TX, USA},
}

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2014DevelopingsketchrecognitionandinteractiontechniquesforintelligentsurfacelesssketchinguserinterfacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      { International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces, Proceedings IUI. },
  title =          {Developing sketch recognition and interaction techniques for intelligent surfaceless sketching user interfaces},
  pages =          {53-55},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {February 24-27},
  address =        {Haifa, Israel},
}

Dialectical Creativity is the act of formulating a new concept through the original idea (the thesis), developing opposing contradictory ideas (the antithesis), and culminating on a more developed concretized idea that both negates and encompasses both the thesis and the antithesis (the synthesis). Sketching is a fundamental part of ideation. The act of performing ideation with an inherently abstract hand-drawn sketch, complete with messiness, allows the sketcher, through the misinterpretation of their own strokes, to evoke antithetical concepts, enabling the sketcher to quickly develop a creative synthetic idea. In the dialectical process there is a constant tension between creative change and the natural tendency to seek stability. Sketch recognition is the automated understanding of hand drawn diagrams by a computer, and can be used to both enhance creativity and/or idea stability. This paper discusses the Sketch Dialectic and its impact on the field of sketch recognition.

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2014DialecticalCreativitySketchNegateCreateConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Studying Visual and Spatial Reasoning for Design Creativity},
  title =          {Dialectical Creativity: Sketch-Negate-Create},
  pages =          {91-108},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {November 9,},
  publisher =      {Springer},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-94-017-9296-7},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondjulielinsey2014DesignComputingandCognitionDCC12ConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing (AIEDAM)},
  title =          {Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'12)},
  volume =         {28-2},
  pages =          {113-114},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {May},
  publisher =      {Cambridge University Press},
}

@inproceedings{aliciahongdeborahvollmermarciaorydanielgoldbergjessicacargilldebrakellstedtjairuspulczinskitracyhammondedgarhernandez2014DevelopmentofICANFITAMobileDeviceApplicationtoPromotePhysicalActivityandAccesstoHealthInformationAmongOlderCancConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hong, Yan and Vollmer Dahlke, Deborah and Ory, Marcia and Goldberg, Daniel and Cargill, Jessica and Kellstedt, Debra and Pulczinski, Jairus and Hammond, Tracy and Hernandez, Edgar},
  booktitle =      {Healthography, American Public Health Association 142nd Annual Meeting \& Expo (APHA)},
  title =          {Development of ICANFIT: A Mobile Device Application to Promote Physical Activity and Access to Health Information Among Older Canc},
  pages =          {1 page},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {November 15-19,},
  publisher =      {APHA},
  address =        {New Orleans, LA, USA},
}

Abilities for fine motor control and executive attention are aspects of self-regulation that contribute to children’s school readiness and achievement, and can be taught and improved through sketching and writing activities. Recent interactive sketching applications have emerged to assist children in developing self-regulation skills through playful learning interfaces. Existing applications tend to focus on rote-based activities where children trace over shapes with little to no feedback for children to self-regulate their learning and monitor their improvements. In this paper, we present our initial child-centered intelligent sketching user interface prototype called EasySketch, designed to support children’s development of self-regulation skills, particularly fine motor, accuracy, and attention-related skills. Our prototype improves upon existing applications by providing immediate evaluation and constructive feedback for self-regulated learning of sketching and writing skills. In the process of evaluating and providing feedback to improve self-regulation, our sketch-based application teaches children pre-reading and pre-math skills such as writing digits and letters.

@inproceedings{honghoekimpaultaelestephanievalentinetracyhammond2014DevelopingIntelligentSketchBasedApplicationsforChildrensFineMotorSketchingSkillDevelopmentConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kim, Hong-Hoe (Ayden) and Taele, Paul and Valentine, Stephanie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {2014 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) Workshop on Sketch: Pen and Touch Recognition},
  title =          {Developing Intelligent Sketch-Based Applications for Children’s Fine Motor Sketching Skill Development},
  pages =          {1-8},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {February 24,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Haifa, Israel, Israel},
}

The tactile medium of communication with users is appropriate for displaying information in situations where auditory and visual mediums are saturated. There are situations where a subject’s ability to receive information through either of these channels is severely restricted by the environment they are in or through any physical impairments that the subject may have. Usually, the tactile information is dis- played in the form of codes. These tactile codes can vary in both shape, and waveform of the code. Designers use variations shape or waveform as tactile codes. Usability of tactile codes depends on the users’ ability to distinguish between these variations. We have built two vibrotactile displays, Tactor I and Tactor II, each with nine actuators arranged in a three-by-three matrix with differing contact areas that can represent a total of 511 shapes. We used two dimensions of tactile medium, shapes and waveforms, to represent verb phrases and evaluated ability of users to perceive the tactile code. We propose a measure to rate the distinguishability between two shapes, a graph model with shapes as nodes and distinguishability between shapes as weights of edges, and an algorithm to cluster distinguishable shapes. We evaluated the distinguishability of shapes from the clustering algorithm against the experimenter’s choice of shapes for tactile codes with eight users. The results show that the users can distinguish the shapes proposed by the clustering algorithm with higher accuracy than the shapes chosen by the experimenter. The results from the study also show that users can identify simultaneously presented waveforms and shapes in the codes without reduction in waveform identification accuracy.

@inproceedings{manojprasadmuratrusselltracyhammond2014AUserCentricModeltoDesignTactileCodeswithShapesandWaveformsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Prasad, Manoj and Russell, Murat and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS)},
  title =          {A User Centric Model to Design Tactile Codes with Shapes and Waveforms},
  pages =          {597-602},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {February 23-26,},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Houston, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4799-3131-6},
}

Soldiers, to guard themselves from enemy assault, have to maintain visual and auditory awareness of their environment. Their visual and auditory senses are thus saturated. This makes these channels less usable for communication. The tactile medium of communication with users is appropriate for displaying information in such situations. Research in interpersonal communication among soldiers shows that the most common form of communication between soldiers involves the use of verb phrases. In this article, we have developed 11 a three-by-three tactile display and proposed a method for mapping the components of a verb phrase to two dimensions of tactile codes—shape and waveform. Perception of tactile codes by users depends on the ability of users to distinguish shape and waveform of the code. We have proposed a measure to rate the distinguish-ability of any two shapes and created a graph-based user-centric model using this measure to select distinguishable shapes from a set of all presentable shapes. We conducted two user studies to evaluate the ability of users to perceive tactile information. The results from our first study showed users’ ability to perceive tactile shapes, tactile waveforms, and form verb phrases from tactile codes. The recognition accuracy and time taken to distinguish were better when the shapes were selected from the graph model than when shapes were chosen based on intuition. The second user study was conducted to test the performance of users while performing a primary visual task simultaneously with a secondary audio or haptic task. Users were more familiar with perceiving information from an auditory medium than from a haptic medium, which was reflected in their performance. Thus the performance of users in the primary visual task was better while using an audio medium of communication than while using a haptic medium of communication.

@inproceedings{manojprasadmuratrusselltracyhammond2014DesigningVibrotactileCodestoCommunicateVerbPhrasesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Prasad, Manoj and Russell, Murat and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications (TOMM)},
  title =          {Designing Vibrotactile Codes to Communicate Verb Phrases},
  volume =         {11-1},
  pages =          {Article 11: pp.1-21},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {ACM},
}

A national study by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau revealed that motorcyclist deaths were nearly thirty times more prevalent than that of drivers of other vehicles. These fatalities represent approximately 5% of all highway deaths each year, yet motorcycles account for only 2% of all registered vehicles in the United States. Motorcyclists are highly exposed on the road, so maintaining situational awareness at all times is crucial. Route guidance systems enable users to efficiently navigate between locations using dynamic visual maps and audio directions, and have been well tested with motorists, but remain unsafe for use by motorcyclists. Audio/visual routing systems decrease motorcyclists’ situational awareness and vehicle control, and thus elevate chances of an accident. To enable motorcyclists to take advantage of route guidance while maintaining situational awareness, we created HaptiMoto, a wearable haptic route guidance system. HaptiMoto uses tactile signals to encode the distance and direction of approaching turns, thus avoiding interference with audio/visual awareness. Our evaluations demonstrate that HaptiMoto is both intuitive and a safer alternative for motorcyclists compared to existing solutions.

@inproceedings{manojprasadpaultaeledanielgoldbergtracyhammond2014HaptiMotoTurnbyTurnHapticRouteGuidanceInterfaceforMotorcyclistsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Prasad, Manoj and Taele, Paul and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {HaptiMoto: Turn-by-Turn Haptic Route Guidance Interface for Motorcyclists},
  pages =          {3597-3606},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {April 27-May 1,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Toronto, Canada, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-2473-1},
}

Complex inter-personal interactions occur in the course of pedestrian navigation. Within familiar environments, prior knowledge helps pedestrians reach their destination seamlessly. However, in unexplored environments or when otherwise engaged, a greater awareness of surroundings or higher cognitive loads are required. We propose HaptiGo, a lightweight haptic vest that provides pedestrians both navigational intelligence and obstacle detection capabilities. HaptiGo consists of optimally-placed vibro- tactile sensors that utilize natural and small form factor interaction cues, thus emulating the invisible sensation of being passively guided towards the intended direction. We evaluated HaptiGo through a study conducted on a group of pedestrians, whom were tasked with navigating through several different waypoints while engaged in cognitively demanding tasks. We found that HaptiGo was able to successfully navigate users with timely alerts of incoming obstacles without increasing cognitive load, thereby increasing their environmental awareness. Additionally, we show that users are able to respond to directional information without training.

@inproceedings{manojprasadpaultaeleayobamiolubekutracyhammond2014HaptiGoANavigationalTapontheShoulderConferencePapers,
  author =         {Prasad, Manoj and Taele, Paul and Olubeku, Ayobami and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS)},
  title =          {HaptiGo: A Navigational ‘Tap on the Shoulder’},
  pages =          {339-345},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {February 23-26,},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Houston, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4799-3131-6},
}

A recent trend in the popular health news is, reporting the dangers of prolonged inactivity in one’s daily routine. The claims are wide in variety and aggressive in nature, link- ing a sedentary lifestyle with obesity and shortened lifespans [25]. Rather than enforcing an individual to perform a physical exercise for a predefined interval of time, we propose a design, implementation, and evaluation of a context aware health assistant system (called Step Up Life) that encourages a user to adopt a healthy life style by performing simple, and contextually suitable physical exercises. Step Up Life is a smart phone application which provides physical activity reminders to the user considering the practical constraints of the user by exploiting the context information like the user location, personal preferences, calendar events, time of the day and the weather [9]. A fully functional implementation of Step Up Life is evaluated by user studies.

@inproceedings{vijayrajannaranierolaragardunodevjyotibeherakarthicmadanagopaldanielgoldbergtracyhammond2014StepUpLifeAContextAwareHealthAssistantConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajanna, Vijay and Lara Garduno, Raniero and Jyoti Behera, Dev  and Madanagopal, Karthic and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Third ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on the Use of GIS in Public Health},
  title =          {Step Up Life: A Context Aware Health Assistant},
  pages =          {21-30},
  year =           {2014},
  month =          {November 4-7,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        { Dallas, Texas, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-3136-4},
}

Mechanix is a sketch recognition program that was developed at Texas A&M University. Mechanix provides an efficient and effective means for engineering students to learn how to draw truss free-body diagrams (FBDs) and solve truss problems. The Mechanix interface allows for students to sketch these FBDs, as they normally would by hand, into a tablet computer; a mouse can also be used with a regular computer monitor. Mechanix is able to provide immediate and intelligent feedback to the students, and it tells them if they are missing any components of the FBD. The program is also able to tell students whether their solved reaction forces or member forces are correct or not without actually providing the answers. A recent and exciting feature of Mechanix is the creative design mode which allows students to solve open-ended truss problems; an instructor can give their students specific minimum requirements for a truss/bridge, and the student uses Mechanix to solve and create this truss. The creative design feature of Mechanix can check if the students’ truss is structurally sound, and if it meets the minimum requirements stated by the instructor. This paper presents a study to evaluate the effectiveness and advantages of using Mechanix in the classroom as a supplement to traditional teaching and learning methods. Mechanix is also tested alongside an established and popular truss program, WinTruss, to see how learning gains differ and what advantages Mechanix offers over other truss analysis software. Freshman engineering classes were recruited for this experiment and were divided into three conditions: a control condition (students who were not exposed to Mechanix or WinTruss and did their assignments on paper), a Mechanix condition (students who used Mechanix in class and for their assignments, and a WinTruss condition (students who used the WinTruss program for their assignments). The learning gains among these three groups were evaluated using a series of quantitative formal assessments which include a statics concepts inventory, homework sets, quizzes, exam grades and truss/bridge creative design solutions. Qualitative data was also collected through focus groups for all three conditions to gather the students’ impressions of the programs for the experimental group and general teaching styles for the control group. Results from previous evaluations show Mechanix highly engages students and helps them learn basic truss mechanics. This evaluation will be compared with previous evaluations to show that Mechanix continues to be a great tool for enhancing student learning.

@inproceedings{funmiatilolaerinmctiguetracyhammondjulielinsey2013MechanixEvaluatingtheEffectivenessofaSketchRecognitionTrussTutorinProgramAgainstOtherTrussProgramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Atilola, Olufunmilola and McTigue, Erin and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {120th American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference \& Exposition (ASEE)},
  title =          {Mechanix: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Sketch Recognition Truss Tutorin Program Against Other Truss Programs},
  pages =          {15 pages},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {June 23-26,},
  publisher =      {ASEE},
  address =        {Atlanta, GA, USA},
}

In today’s digital world many individuals spend their day in front of a computer or mobile phone for entertainment. Individuals enjoy a more sedentary lifestyle from advances in technology. This is one of the leading factors contributing to a decrease in fitness level for large parts of the populations in developed countries. We want to design a mobile role-playing game (RPG) where the character evolves based on the exercises the user performs in reality. This design can motivate and persuade a potentially large demographic of users to engage in physical activity for an extended period of time through the enjoyment of an engaging game. This novel application has shown the capability of automatically identifying and counting the exercises performed by the user. This automatic activity recognition and numeration is performed solely through the accelerometer of a single smartphone held by the user while exercising. The type and amount of exercise improve the characters speed, strength, and stamina based on the type and amount of exercise performed.

@inproceedings{joebartleyjonathonforsythprachipendsedaxingarrettbrownpaulhagsethagrawalashishdanielgoldbergtracyhammond2013WorldofWorkoutaContextualMobileRPGtoEncourageLongTermFitnessConferencePapers,
  author =         {Bartley, Joey and Forsyth, Jonathon and Pendse, Prachi and Xin, Da and Brown, Garrett and Hagseth, Paul and Agrawal, Ashish and Goldberg, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Second ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on the Use of GIS in Public Health},
  title =          {World of Workout: a Contextual Mobile RPG to Encourage Long Term Fitness},
  pages =          {60-67},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {November 5,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Orlando, FL, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-2529-5},
}

Navigation and assembly are critical tasks for Soldiers in battlefield situations [3]. Paratroopers, in particular, must be able to parachute into a battlefield and locate and assemble their equipment as quickly and quietly as possible. Current assembly methods rely on bulky and antiquated equipment that inhibit the speed and effectiveness of such operations. To address this we have created a multi-modal mobile navigation system that uses ruggedized to mark assembly points and smartphones to assist in navigating to these points while minimizing cognitive load and maximizing situational awareness. To achieve this task, we implemented a novel beacon receiver protocol that allows an infinite number of receivers to listen to the encrypted beaconing message using only ad-hoc Wi-Fi technologies. The system was evaluated by U.S. Army Paratroopers and proved quick to learn and efficient at moving Soldiers to navigation waypoints. Beyond military operations, this system could be applied to any task that requires the assembly and coordination of many individuals or teams, such as emergency evacuations, fighting wildfires or locating airdropped humanitarian aid.

@inproceedings{daniellecummingsmanojprasadgeorgelucchesechrisaikenstracyhammond2013MultiModalLocationAwareSystemforParatrooperTeamCoordinationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cummings, Danielle and Prasad, Manoj and Lucchese, George and Aikens, Chris and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI'13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {Multi-Modal Location-Aware System for Paratrooper Team Coordination},
  pages =          {2385-2387},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {April 27-May 2,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Paris, France, France},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1952-2},
}

Research in multi-touch interaction has typically been focused on direct spatial manipulation; techniques have been create to result in the most intuitive mapping between the movement of the hand and the resultant change in the virtual object. However, as we attempt to design for more complex operations, the expectation of spatial manipulation becomes infeasible. We introduce Multi-tap Sliders for operation in what we call abstract parametric spaces that do not have an obvious literal spatial representation, such as exposure, brightness, contrast and saturation for image editing. This new widget design promotes multi-touch interaction for prolonged use in scenarios that require adjustment of multiple parameters as part of an operation. The multi-tap sliders encourage the user to keep her visual focus on the target, instead of the requiring to look back at the interface. Our research emphasizes ergonomics, clear visual design, and fluid transition between the selection of parameters and their subsequent adjustment for a given operation. We demonstrate a new technique for quickly selecting and adjusting multiple numerical parameters. A preliminary user study points out improvements over the traditional sliders.

@inproceedings{sashikanthdamarajuhwaryoungjinsilseotracyhammondandruidkerne2013MultiTapSlidersAdvancingTouchInteractionforParameterAdjustmentConferencePapers,
  author =         {Damaraju, Sashikanth and Seo, Hwaryoung and Hammond, Tracy and Kerne, Andruid},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2013 International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {Multi-Tap Sliders: Advancing Touch Interaction for Parameter Adjustment},
  pages =          {445-452},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {March 19-22,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Santa Monica, CA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1965-2},
}

In this position paper, we describe a vision for the future of a so-called “Spatial-Health CyberGIS Marketplace”. We first situate this proposed new computing ecosystem within the set of currently-available enabling technologies and techniques. We next provide a detailed vision of the capabilities and features of an ecosystem that will benefit individuals, industries, and government agencies. We conclude with a set of research challenges, both technological & societal, which must be overcome in order for such a vision to be fully realized.

@inproceedings{danielgoldbergmylescockburntracyhammondgeoffreyjacquezdanieljaniescraigknoblockwernerkuhnedwardpultarmartinraubal2013EnvisioningaFutureforaSpatialHealthCyberGISMarketplaceConferencePapers,
  author =         {Goldberg, Daniel and Cockburn, Myles and Hammond, Tracy and Jacquez, Geoffrey and Janies, Daniel and Knoblock, Craig and Kuhn, Werner and Pultar , Edward  and Raubal, Martin },
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Second ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on the Use of GIS in Public Health},
  title =          {Envisioning a Future for a Spatial-Health CyberGIS Marketplace},
  pages =          {27-30},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {November 5,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Orlando, FL, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-2529-5},
}

Sketching is one of the many valuable lifelong skills that children require in their overall development, and many educational psychologists manually analyze children’s sketches to assess their developmental progress. The disadvantages of manual assessment are that it is time-consuming and prone to human error and bias, so intelligent sketching interfaces have strong potential in automating this process. Unfortunately, current sketch recognition techniques concentrate solely on recognizing the meaning of sketches, rather than the sketcher’s developmental skill; and do not perform well on children’s sketched input, as most are trained on and developed for adult’s sketches. We introduce our proposed solution called KimCHI, a specialized sketch classification technique which utilizes a sketching interface for assessing the developmental skills of children from their sketches. Our approach relies on sketch feature selection to automatically classify the developmental progress of children’s sketches as either developmental or mature. We evaluated our classifiers through a user study, and our classifiers were able to differentiate the users’ development skill and gender with reasonable accuracy. We subsequently created an initial sketching interface utilizing our specialized classifier called EasySketch for demonstrating educational applications to assist children in developing their sketching skills.

@inproceedings{honghoekimpaultaelestephanievalentineerinmctiguetracyhammond2013KimCHIASketchBasedDevelopmentalSkillClassifiertoEnhancePenDrivenEducationalInterfacesforChildrenConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kim, Hong-Hoe (Ayden) and Taele, Paul and Valentine, Stephanie and McTigue, Erin and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling, Expressive 2013 - The Joint Symposium on Computational Aesthetics and Sketch-Based Interfaces and modeling and Non-Photorealistic Animation and Rendering},
  title =          {KimCHI: A Sketch-Based Developmental Skill Classifier to Enhance Pen-Driven Educational Interfaces for Children},
  pages =          {33-42},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {July 19-21,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Anaheim, CA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-57735-633-2},
}

Researchers have made significant strides in developing recognition techniques for surface sketches, with realized and potential applications to motivate extending these techniques towards analogous surfaceless sketches. Yet surface sketch recognition techniques remain largely untested in surfaceless environments and are still highly constrained for related surfaceless gesture recognition techniques. The focus of the research is to investigate the performance of surface sketch recognition techniques in more challenging surfaceless environments, with the aim of addressing existing limitations through improved surfaceless sketch recognition techniques.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2013AdaptingSurfaceSketchRecognitionTechniquesforSurfacelessSketchesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)},
  title =          {Adapting Surface Sketch Recognition Techniques for Surfaceless Sketches},
  pages =          {3243-3244},
  year =           {2013},
  month =          {August 3-9,},
  publisher =      {AAAI Press},
  address =        {Beijing, China, China},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-57735-633-2},
}

@inproceedings{funmiatilolacherylostermanfranciscovideserinmctiguetracyhammondjulielinsey2012MechanixThedevelopmentofasketchrecognitiontrusstutoringsystemConferencePapers,
  author =         {Atilola, Olufunmilola and Osterman, Cheryl and Vides, Francisco and McTigue, Erin and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {119th American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference \& Exposition (ASEE)},
  title =          {Mechanix: The development of a sketch recognition truss tutoring system. },
  pages =          {15 pages},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {June},
  publisher =      {ASEE},
  address =        {San Antonio, TX, USA},
}

Mechanix is a sketch recognition program that was developed at Texas A&M University. Mechanix provides an efficient and effective means for engineering students to learn how to draw truss free-body diagrams (FBDs) and solve truss problems. The Mechanix interface allows for students to sketch these FBDs, as they normally would by hand, into a tablet computer; a mouse can also be used with a regular computer monitor. Mechanix is able to provide immediate and intelligent feedback to the students, and it tells them if they are missing any components of the FBD. The program is also able to tell students whether their solved reaction forces or member forces are correct or not without actually providing the answers. A recent and exciting feature of Mechanix is the creative design mode which allows students to solve open-ended truss problems; an instructor can give their students specific minimum requirements for a truss/bridge, and the student uses Mechanix to solve and create this truss. The creative design feature of Mechanix can check if the students’ truss is structurally sound, and if it meets the minimum requirements stated by the instructor. This paper presents a study to evaluate the effectiveness and advantages of using Mechanix in the classroom as a supplement to traditional teaching and learning methods. Mechanix is also tested alongside an established and popular truss program, WinTruss, to see how learning gains differ and what advantages Mechanix offers over other truss analysis software. Freshman engineering classes were recruited for this experiment and were divided into three conditions: a control condition (students who were not exposed to Mechanix or WinTruss and did their assignments on paper), a Mechanix condition (students who used Mechanix in class and for their assignments, and a WinTruss condition (students who used the WinTruss program for their assignments). The learning gains among these three groups were evaluated using a series of quantitative formal assessments which include a statics concepts inventory, homework sets, quizzes, exam grades and truss/bridge creative design solutions. Qualitative data was also collected through focus groups for all three conditions to gather the students’ impressions of the programs for the experimental group and general teaching styles for the control group. Results from previous evaluations show Mechanix highly engages students and helps them learn basic truss mechanics. This evaluation will be compared with previous evaluations to show that Mechanix continues to be a great tool for enhancing student learning.

@inproceedings{funmiatilolafranciscovideserinmctiguejulielinseytracyhammond2012AutomaticIdentificationofStudentMisconceptionsandErrorsforTrussAnalysisConferencePapers,
  author =         {Atilola, Olufunmilola and Vides, Francisco and McTigue, Erin and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {119th American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference \& Exposition (ASEE)},
  title =          {Automatic Identification of Student Misconceptions and Errors for Truss Analysis},
  pages =          {25.244.1 - 25.244.13},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {June 10-13,},
  publisher =      {ASEE},
  address =        {San Antonio, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISSN 2153-5965, \url{https://peer.asee.org/21004}},
}

In order to decrease the number of casualties and limit the number of potentially dangerous situations that Soldiers encounter, the US military is exploring the use of autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to fulfill air support requests (ASR) from the field. The interface for this system must provide interaction in modes that facilitate the completion of the support request in various scenarios, and it must be usable by operators of all skill levels, without requiring extensive training or considerable expertise. Sketches are a simple and natural way to exchange information and ideas. Sketching as a form of human-computer interaction can be very useful in areas where information is represented graphically. In this paper we present the development of an interface that that allows the user to plan an ASR using sketch and other inputs while conforming to the users mental model of natural interaction.

@inproceedings{daniellecummingsstephanefymattracyhammond2012SketchBasedInterfaceforInteractionwithUnmannedAirVehiclesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cummings, Danielle and Fymat, Stephane and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {Sketch-Based Interface for Interaction with Unmanned Air Vehicles},
  pages =          {1511-1516},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {May 5-10,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Austin, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1016-1},
}

Navigation and assembly are critical tasks for Soldiers in battlefield situations. Soldiers must locate equipment, supplies and teammates quickly and quietly in order to ensure the success of their mission. This task can be extremely difficult and take a significant amount of time without guidance or extensive experience. To facilitate the re-assembly and coordination of airborne paratrooper teams, we have developed a location-aware system that uses an ad-hoc Wi-Fi network in order to broadcast and receive GPS coordinates of equipment and/or rendezvous points. The system consists of beacons, ruggedized computers placed at assembly points that broadcast their position over Wi- Fi, and receivers, handheld Android devices which orient the user towards the beacons and/or any predetermined coordinates.

@inproceedings{daniellecummingsgeorgelucchesemanojprasadchrisaikensjimmyhotracyhammond2012GeoTrooperAMobileLocationAwareSystemforTeamCoordinationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cummings, Danielle and Lucchese, George and Prasad, Manoj and Aikens, Chris and Ho, Jimmy and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 13th International Conference of the NZ Chapter of the ACM's Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (CHINZ)},
  title =          {GeoTrooper: A Mobile Location-Aware System for Team Coordination},
  pages =          {p.102},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {July 2-3,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Dunedin, New Zealand, New Zealand},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1474-9},
}

Applications that use geolocation data are becoming a common addition to GPS-enabled devices. In terms of mobile computing, there is extensive research in progress to create human-computer interfaces that integrate seamlessly with the user’s tasks. When viewing location-based data in a real-world environment, a natural interaction would be to allow the user to see relevant information based on his or her location within an environment. In this paper, we discuss the use of a multi-modal interface that uses haptic feedback and augmented reality to deliver navigation information to paratroopers in the field. This interface was developed for GeoTrooper, a location-based tracking system that visualizes GPS data broadcast by mobile beacons.

@inproceedings{daniellecummingsgeorgelucchesemanojprasadchrisaikensjimmyhotracyhammond2012HapticandARInterfaceforParatrooperCoordinationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cummings, Danielle and Lucchese, George and Prasad, Manoj and Aikens, Chris and Ho, Jimmy and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 13th International Conference of the NZ Chapter of the ACM's Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction (CHINZ)},
  title =          {Haptic and AR Interface for Paratrooper Coordination},
  pages =          {52-55},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {July 2-3,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Dunedin, New Zealand, New Zealand},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1474-9},
}

In order to decrease the number of casualties and limit the number of potentially dangerous situations that Soldiers encounter, the US military is exploring the use of autonomous Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) to fulfill air support requests (ASR) from the field. The interface for such a system must provide interaction in modes that facilitate the completion of the support request in various scenarios, and it must be usable by operators of all skill levels, without requiring extensive training or considerable expertise. Sketches are a simple and natural way to exchange graphical information and ideas. In this paper we present the development of an interface that that allows the user to plan an ASR using sketch and other inputs while conforming to the userŠs mental model of natural interaction.

@inproceedings{daniellecummingsstephanefymattracyhammond2012ReddogASmartSketchInterfaceforAutonomousAerialAystemsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cummings, Danielle and Fymat, Stephane and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {Reddog: A Smart Sketch Interface for Autonomous Aerial Aystems},
  pages =          {21-28},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {June 4-6,},
  publisher =      {Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Annecy, France, France},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-905674-42-2},
}

Drawing is a common form of communication and a means of artistic expression. Many of us believe that the ability to draw accurate representations of objects is a skill that either comes naturally or is the result of hours of study or practice or both. As a result many people become intimidated when confronted with the task of drawing. Many books and websites have been developed to teach people step-by-step skills to draw various objects, but they lack the live feedback of a human examiner. We designed EyeSeeYou, a sketch recognition system that teaches users to draw eyes using a simple drawing technique. The system automatically evaluates the freehand drawn sketch of an eye at various stages during creation. We conducted frequent evaluations of the system in order to take an iterative development approach based on user feedback. Our system balances the flexibility of free-hand drawing with step-by-step instructions and realtime assessment. It also provides rigorous feedback to create a constructive learning environment to aid the user in improving her drawing. This paper describes the implementation details of the sketch recognition system. A similar implementation method could be used to provide sketching tutorials for a wide number of images.

@inproceedings{daniellecummingsfranciscovidestracyhammond2012IDontBelieveMyEyesGeometricSketchRecognitionforaComputerArtTutorialConferencePapers,
  author =         {Cummings, Danielle and Vides, Francisco and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the International Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {I Don't Believe My Eyes!: Geometric Sketch Recognition for a Computer Art Tutorial},
  pages =          {97-106},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {June 4-6,},
  publisher =      {Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Annecy, France, France},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-905674-42-2},
}

Mechanix is a computer-assisted tutoring system for engineering students. It uses recognition of freehand sketches to provide instant, detailed, and formative feedback as a student progresses through each homework problem. By using recognition algorithms, the system allows students to solve free-body diagrams and truss problems as if they were using a pen and paper. However, the system currently provides little support for students to edit their drawings by using free hand sketches. Specifically, students may wish to delete part or the whole of a line or shape, and the natural response is to scribble that part of shape out. We developed a new method for integrating scribble gestures into a sketch recognition system. The algorithm automatically identifies and distinguishes scribble gestures from regular drawing input using three features. If the stroke is classified as a scribble, then the algorithm further decides which shape or which part of shape to be deleted. Instead of using slower brute-force methods, we use geometric-based linear-time algorithms which efficiently detect a scribble gesture and remove the intended shapes in real-time.

@inproceedings{wenzhelitracyhammond2012UsingScribbleGesturestoEnhanceEditingBehaviorsofSketchRecognitionSystemsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Li, Wenzhe and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {Using Scribble Gestures to Enhance Editing Behaviors of Sketch Recognition Systems},
  pages =          {2213-2218},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {May 5-10,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Austin, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1016-1},
}

GestureCommander is a touch-based gesture control system for mobile devices that is able to recognize gestures as they are being performed. Continuous recognition allows the system to provide visual feedback to the user and to anticipate user commands to possibly decrease perceived response time. To achieve this goal we employ two Hidden Markov Model (HMM) systems, one for recognition and another for generating visual feedback. We analyze a set of geometric features used in other gesture recognition systems and determine a subset that works best for HMMs. Finally we demonstrate the practicality of our recognition HMMs in a proof of concept mobile application for Google’s Android mobile platform that has a recognition accuracy rate of 96% over 15 distinct gestures.

@inproceedings{georgelucchesemartinfieldjimmyhoricardogutierrezosunatracyhammond2012GestureCommanderContinuousTouchBasedGesturePredictionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Lucchese, George and Field, Martin and Ho, Jimmy and Gutierrez-Osuna, Ricardo and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {GestureCommander: Continuous Touch-Based Gesture Prediction},
  pages =          {1925-1930},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {May 5-10,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Austin, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1016-1},
}

Teaching typically involves communication of knowledge in multiple modalities. The ubiquity of pen-enabled technologies in teaching has made the accurate capture of user ink data possible, alongside technologies to recognize voice data. When annotating on a white board or other presentation surface, teachers often have a specific style of structuring contents taught in a lecture. The availability of sketch data and voice data can enable researchers to analyze trends followed by teachers in writing and annotating notes. Using ethnographic methods, we have observed the structure that teachers use while presenting lectures on mathematics. We have observed the practices followed by teachers in writing and speaking the lecture content, and have derived models that would help computer scientists identify the structure of the content. This observational study motivates the idea that we can use speech and color change events to distinguish between strokes meant for drawing versus those meant for attention marks.

@inproceedings{manojprasadtracyhammond2012ObservationalStudyonTeachingArtifactsCreatedUsingTabletPCConferencePapers,
  author =         {Prasad, Manoj and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {Observational Study on Teaching Artifacts Created Using Tablet PC},
  pages =          {301-316},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {May 5-10,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Austin, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1016-1},
}

Sketch recognition researchers have long concentrated their energies on investigating issues related to computer systems’ difficulties in recognizing hand-drawn diagrams, but the focus has largely been on recognizing sketches on physical surfaces. While beyond-surface sketching actively takes place in diverse forms and in various activities, directly applying existing on-surface sketch recognition techniques beyond physical surfaces is far from trivial. In this paper, we investigate initial approaches for locating corners and extracting primitive geometric shapes in beyond-surface sketches, which are important ingredients of subsequent higher-level interpretations for building richer sketching interfaces. Moreover, we investigate preliminary challenges of sketch recognition in beyond-surface environments and discuss possible solutions for achieving successful next-step extensions of this work.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2012InitialApproachesforExtendingSketchRecognitiontoBeyondSurfaceEnvironmentsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {CHI'12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {Initial Approaches for Extending Sketch Recognition to Beyond-Surface Environments},
  pages =          {2039-2044},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {May 5-10,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Austin, TX, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-1016-1},
}

Introductory engineering courses within large universities often have annual enrollments which can reach up to a thousand students. It is very challenging to achieve differentiated instruction in classrooms with class sizes and student diversity of such great magnitude. Professors can only assess whether students have mastered a concept by using multiple choice questions, while detailed homework assignments, such as planar truss diagrams, are rarely assigned because professors and teaching assistants would be too overburdened with grading to return assignments with valuable feedback in a timely manner. In this paper, we introduce Mechanix, a sketch-based deployed tutoring system for engineer- ing students enrolled in statics courses. Our system not only allows students to enter planar truss and free body diagrams into the system just as they would with pen- cil and paper, but our system checks the student’s work against a hand-drawn answer entered by the instructor, and then returns immediate and detailed feedback to the student. Students are allowed to correct any errors in their work and resubmit until the entire con- tent is correct and thus all of the objectives are learned. Since Mechanix facilitates the grading and feedback processes, instructors are now able to assign free response questions, increasing teacher’s knowledge of student comprehension. Furthermore, the iterative correction process allows students to learn during a test, rather than simply displaying memorized information.

@inproceedings{stephanievalentinefranciscovidesgeorgelucchesedavidturnerhonghoekimwenzhelijulielinseytracyhammond2012MechanixASketchBasedTutoringSystemforStaticsCoursesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Valentine, Stephanie and Vides, Francisco and Lucchese, George and Turner, David and Kim, Hong-Hoe (Ayden) and Li, Wenzhe and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI)},
  title =          {Mechanix: A Sketch-Based Tutoring System for Statics Courses},
  pages =          {2253-2260},
  year =           {2012},
  month =          {July 22-26,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Toronto, Canada, Canada},
}

@inproceedings{franciscovidespaultaelehonghoekimtracyhammond2012IntelligentFeedbackforKidsUsingSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Vides, Francisco and Taele, Paul and Kim, Hong-Hoe (Ayden) and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {ACM SIGCHI 2012 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Workshop on Educational Interfaces, Software, and Technology},
  title =          {        Intelligent Feedback for Kids Using Sketch Recognition},
  year =           {2012},
  publisher =      {ACM},
}

@inproceedings{funmiatilolamartinfielderinmctiguetracyhammondjulielinsey2011MechanixASketchRecognitionTrussTutoringSystemConferencePapers,
  author =         {Atilola, Olufunmilola and Field, Martin and McTigue, Erin and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) 2011 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference, Volume 7: 5th International Conference on Micro- and Nanosystems; 8th International Conference on Design and Design Education; 21st Reliability, Stress Analysis, and Failure Prevention Conference.},
  title =          {Mechanix: A Sketch Recognition Truss Tutoring System},
  volume =         {7},
  pages =          {645-654},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {August 28-30,},
  publisher =      {ASME},
  address =        {Washington, DC, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-0-7918-5484-6},
}

@inproceedings{funmiatilolamartinfielderinmctiguetracyhammondjulielinsey2011EvaluationofaNaturalSketchInterfaceforTrussFBDsandAnalysisConferencePapers,
  author =         {Atilola, Olufunmilola and Field, Martin and McTigue, Erin and Hammond, Tracy and Linsey, Julie},
  booktitle =      {Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE)},
  title =          {Evaluation of a Natural Sketch Interface for Truss FBDs and Analysis},
  pages =          {S2E-1 - S2E-6},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {October},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Rapid City, SD, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-61284-468-8},
}

@inproceedings{martinfieldstephanievalentinejulielinseytracyhammond2011SketchRecognitionAlgorithmsforComparingComplexandUnpredictableShapesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Field, Martin and Valentine, Stephanie and Linsey, Julie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Second international Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)},
  title =          {Sketch Recognition Algorithms for Comparing Complex and Unpredictable Shapes},
  volume =         {3},
  pages =          {2436-2441},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {July 16-22,},
  publisher =      {AAAI Press},
  address =        {Barcelona, Spain, Spain},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondaaronadler2011IUI2011workshopsketchrecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Adler, Aaron},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {IUI 2011 workshop: sketch recognition},
  pages =          {465-466},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {February 13-16,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Palo Alto, CA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-0419-1},
}

@inproceedings{kourtneykebodeauxmartinfieldtracyhammond2011DefiningPreciseMeasurementswithSketchedAnnotationsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kebodeaux, Kourtney and Field, Martin and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Eighth Eurographics Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {Defining Precise Measurements with Sketched Annotations},
  pages =          {79-86},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {August 5-7,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Vancouver, Canada, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-0906-6},
}

This paper presents an acoustic sound recognizer to recognize what people are writing on a table or wall by utilizing the sound signal information generated from a key, pen, or fingernail moving along a textured surface. Sketching provides a natural modality to interact with text, and sound is an effective modality for distinguishing text. However, limited research has been conducted in this area. Our system uses a dynamic time- warping approach to recognize 26 hand-sketched characters (A-Z) solely through their acoustic signal. Our initial prototype system is user-dependent and relies on fixed stroke ordering. Our algorithm relied mainly on two features: mean amplitude and MFCCs (Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients). Our results showed over 80% recognition accuracy.

@inproceedings{wenzhelitracyhammond2011RecognizingTextThroughSoundAloneConferencePapers,
  author =         {Li, Wenzhe and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Fifth AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
  title =          {Recognizing Text Through Sound Alone},
  pages =          {1481-1486},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {August 7-11,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {San Francisco, CA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{niclupfermartinfieldandruidkernetracyhammond2011sketchyMorphingUserSketchesforArtisticAssistanceConferencePapers,
  author =         {Lupfer, Nic and Field, Martin and Kerne, Andruid and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2011 ACM International conference on intelligent user interface},
  title =          {sketchy: Morphing User Sketches for Artistic Assistance},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {February 13-16,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Palo Alto, CA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{stephanievalentinemartinfieldannsmithtracyhammond2011AShapeComparisonTechniqueforUseinSketchBasedTutoringSystemsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Valentine, Stephanie and Field, Martin and Smith, Ann and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2011 Intelligent User Interfaces Workshop on Sketch Recognition (Palo Alto, CA, USA, 2011) },
  title =          {A Shape Comparison Technique for Use in Sketch-Based Tutoring Systems},
  volume =         {11-5},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {February 13,},
  publisher =      {IUI},
  address =        {Palo Alto, CA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{aaronwolinmartinfieldtracyhammond2011CombiningCornersfromMultipleSegmentersConferencePapers,
  author =         {Wolin, Aaron and Field, Martin and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Eighth Eurographics Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {Combining Corners from Multiple Segmenters},
  pages =          {117-124},
  year =           {2011},
  month =          {August 5-7,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Vancouver, Canada, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-0906-6},
}

@inproceedings{gennarocostagliolatracyhammondberylplimmer2010EditorialJVLCSpecialIssueonSketchComputationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Costagliola, Gennaro and Hammond, Tracy and Plimmer, Beryl},
  booktitle =      {Journal of Visual Languages \& Computing (JVLC)},
  title =          {Editorial: JVLC Special Issue on Sketch Computation},
  volume =         {21-2},
  pages =          {67-68},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {April},
  publisher =      {Elsevier},
}

Collaboration is a helpful tool for inspiring creativity and promoting idea generation. To assist sketch collaboration using digital sketching, we developed CoSke (short for Collaborative Sketching), a server application that lets multiple users, each sketching on their own client, draw collaboratively on a shared canvas. We performed a user study to investigate how users react to varying methods of collaborative interaction, comparing the shared digital canvas to traditional pen and paper methods, as well as same room versus distinct locations. User surveys recorded participants' qualitative opinions about the methods. Points of communication such as hand gestures, eye contact, and contribution were recorded by proctors. The results from these metrics along with user study comments suggest that paper-based methods may impede collaboration due to the physical constraints inherent in a shared physical drawing space, and that speech is vital to effective sketch collaboration. Proctor recordings also provide insight into which face-to-face methods of collaborative communication can be translated into the digital realm. Further examination of the data collected from this and future studies will provide further insight to these questions and guidance on how developers can envision and build a system that will truly provide for the capabilities and natural flow of face-to-face human sketching communication.

@inproceedings{jessicadavidbrianeofftracyhammond2010CoSkeAnExplorationinCollaborativeSketchingConferencePapers,
  author =         {David, Jessica and Eoff, Brian and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Computer Supported Cooperative Work Posters (CSCW)},
  title =          {CoSke-An Exploration in Collaborative Sketching},
  pages =          {471-472},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {February 6-10,},
  address =        {Savannah, GA, USA},
}

When asked to draw, many people are hesitant because they consider themselves unable to draw well. This paper describes the first system for a computer to provide direction and feedback for assisting a user to draw a human face as accurately as possible from an image. Face recognition is first used to model the features of a human face in an image, which the user wishes to replicate. Novel sketch recognition algorithms were developed to use the information provided by the face recognition to evaluate the hand-drawn face. Two design iterations and user studies led to nine design principles for providing such instruction, presenting reference media, giving corrective feedback, and receiving actions from the user. The result is a proof-of- concept application that can guide a person through step- by-step instruction and generated feedback toward producing his/her own sketch of a human face in a reference image.

@inproceedings{danieldixonmanojprasadtracyhammond2010iCanDrawUsingSketchRecognitionandCorrectiveFeedbacktoAssistaUserinDrawingHumanFacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Dixon, Daniel and Prasad, Manoj and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {iCanDraw: Using Sketch Recognition and Corrective Feedback to Assist a User in Drawing Human Faces},
  pages =          {897-906},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {April 10-15,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Atlanta, GA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-929-9},
}

Military course-of-action (COA) diagrams are used to depict battle scenarios and include thousands of unique symbols, complete with additional textual and designator modifiers. We have created a real-time sketch recognition interface that recognizes 485 freely-drawn military course-of-action sym- bols. When the variations (not allowable by other systems) are factored in, our system is several orders of magnitude larger than the next biggest system. On 5,900 hand-drawn symbols, the system achieves an accuracy of 90% when con- sidering the top 3 interpretations and requiring every aspect of the shape (variations, text, symbol, location, orientation) to be correct.

@inproceedings{tracyhammonddrewlogsdonbrandonpaulsonjoshjohnstonjoshuapeschelaaronwolinpaultaele2010ASketchRecognitionSystemforRecognizingFreeHandCourseofActionDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Logsdon, Drew and Paulson, Brandon and Johnston, Joshua and Peschel, Joshua and Wolin, Aaron and Taele, Paul},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI)},
  title =          {A Sketch Recognition System for Recognizing Free-Hand Course of Action Diagrams},
  pages =          {1781-1786},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {July 11-15,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Atlanta, GA, USA},
}

Sketch recognition is automated understanding of hand- drawn diagrams. Current sketch recognition systems exist for only a handful of domains, which contain on the order of 10-20 shapes. Our goal was to create a generalized method for recognition that could work for many domains, increasing the number of shapes that could be recognized in real-time, while maintaining a high accuracy. In an effort to effectively recognize shapes while allowing drawing freedom (both drawing-style freedom and perceptually- valid variations), we created the shape description language modeled after the way people naturally describe shapes to 1) create an intuitive and easy to understand description, providing transparency to the underlying recognition process, and 2) to improve recognition by providing recognition flexibility (drawing freedom) that is aligned with how humans perceive shapes. This paper describes the results of a study performed to see how users naturally describe shapes. A sample of 35 subjects described or drew approximately 16 shapes each. Results show a common vocabulary related to Gestalt grouping and singularities. Results also show that perception, similarity, and context play an important role in how people describe shapes. This study resulted in a language (LADDER) that allows shape recognizers for any domain to be automatically generated from a single hand-drawn example of each shape. Sketch systems for over 30 different domains have been automatically generated based on this language. The largest domain contained 923 distinct shapes, and achieved a recognition accuracy of 83% (and a top-3 accuracy of 87%) on a corpus of over 11,000 sketches, which recognizes almost two orders of magnitude more shapes than any other existing system.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2010CreatingthePerceptionBasedLADDERSketchRecognitionLanguageConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 8th ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS)},
  title =          {Creating the Perception-Based LADDER Sketch Recognition Language},
  pages =          {141-150},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {August 16-20,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Aarhus, Denmark, Denmarkl},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4503-0103-9},
}

Sketch recognition user interfaces currently treat the pen in the same manner as a mouse and keyboard. The aim of this workshop is to promote thought and discussion about how to move beyond this to create natural and intuitive pen-based interfaces. To this end, the workshop will include panel discussions, group discussions, and even an instructional session on drawing sketches.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondedwardlankaaronadler2010SkCHIDesigningSketchRecognitionInterfacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Lank, Edward and Adler, Aaron},
  booktitle =      {CHI'10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {SkCHI: Designing Sketch Recognition Interfaces},
  pages =          {4501-4504},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {April 10-15,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        { Atlanta, GA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-930-5},
}

Sketch recognition is the automated recognition of hand drawn diagrams. Military course-of-action (COA) diagrams are used to depict battle scenarios. The domain of military course of action diagrams is particularly interesting because it includes tens of thousands of different geometric shapes, complete with many additional textual and designator modifiers. Existing sketch recognition systems recognize on the order of at most 20 different shapes. Our sketch recognition interface recognizes 485 different freely drawn military course-of-action diagram symbols in real time, with each shape containing its own elaborate set of text labels and other variations. We are able to do this by combining multiple recognition techniques in a single system. When the variations (not allowable by other systems) are factored in, our system is several orders of magnitude larger than the next biggest system. On 5,900 hand-drawn symbols drawn by 8 researchers, the system achieves an accuracy of 90% when considering the top 3 interpretations and requiring every aspect of the shape (variations, text, symbol, location, orientation) to be correct.

@inproceedings{tracyhammonddrewlogsdonjoshuapescheljoshjohnstonpaultaeleaaronwolinbrandonpaulson2010ASketchRecognitionInterfacethatRecognizesHundredsofShapesinCourseofActionDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Logsdon, Drew and Peschel, Joshua and Johnston, Joshua and Taele, Paul and Wolin, Aaron and Paulson, Brandon},
  booktitle =      {CHI'10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {A Sketch Recognition Interface that Recognizes Hundreds of Shapes in Course-of-Action Diagrams},
  pages =          {4213-4218},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {April 10-15,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        { Atlanta, GA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-930-5},
}

iCanDraw is a drawing tool that can assist novice users to draw. The goal behind the system is to enable the users to perceive objects beyond what they know and improve their spatial cognitive skills. One of the early tasks in a beginner art class is to accurately reproduce an image, in an attempt to teach users to draw what they see, rather then what they know, improving spatial cognition skills. The iCanDraw system assists users to reproduce a human face, providing real-time drawing feedback enabled by face and sketch recognition technologies. We are presenting an art installation piece, where the conference participants using the iCanDraw ‘smart graphics’ system create the art in real- time at the conference.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondmanojprasaddanieldixon2010Art101LearningtoDrawthroughSketchrecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Prasad, Manoj and Dixon, Daniel},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of 10th International Symposium on Smart Graphics, Lecture Notes In Computer Science 6133},
  title =          {Art 101: Learning to Draw through Sketch recognition},
  volume =         {633},
  pages =          {277-280},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {June 24-26,},
  publisher =      {Springer Berlin Heidelberg},
  address =        {Banff, Canada, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-642-13543-9},
}

Geometric constraints are used by many sketch recognition systems to perform high-level assembly of components of a sketch into semantic structures. However, with a few notable exceptions, most of the current recognition systems do not have constraints that use real-valued notions of confidence. We discuss methods for assigning confidence values to different kinds of constraints. We show how these confidence values equate to user perception, how they can be used to balance speed and accuracy in recognition algorithms, and how they can be used to assign confidence values to the high-level shapes they are used to construct. We use these constraints to extend the LADDER shape definition language in a system that recognizes 5,900 hand-drawn examples of 485 different military course-of-action diagrams at an accuracy of 89.9%.

@inproceedings{joshjohnstontracyhammond2010ComputingConfidenceValuesforGeometricConstraintsforUseinSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Johnston, Joshua and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Seventh Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling Symposium (SBIM)},
  title =          {Computing Confidence Values for Geometric Constraints for Use in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {71-78},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {June 7-10,},
  publisher =      {Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Annecy, France, France},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-905674-25-5},
}

The console gaming industry is experiencing a revolution in terms of user control, and a large part to Nintendo’s introduction of the Wii remote. The online open source development community has embraced the Wii remote, integrating the inexpensive technology into numerous applications. Some of the more interesting applications demonstrate how the remote hardware can be leveraged for nonstandard uses. In this paper we describe a new way of interacting with the Wii remote and sensor bar to produce music. The Wiiolin is a virtual instrument which can mimic a violin or cello. Sensor bar motion relative to the Wii remote and button presses are analyzed in real-time to generate notes. Our design is novel in that it involves the remote’s infrared camera and sensor bar as an integral part of music production, allowing users to change notes by simply altering the angle of their wrist, and henceforth, bow. The Wiiolin introduces a more realistic way of instrument interaction than other attempts that rely on button presses and accelerometer data alone.

@inproceedings{jacemillertracyhammond2010WiiolinAVirtualInstrumentUsingtheWiiRemoteConferencePapers,
  author =         {Miller, Jace and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2010 Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME)},
  title =          {Wiiolin: A Virtual Instrument Using the Wii Remote},
  pages =          {497-500},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {June 15-18,},
  address =        {Sydney, Australia, Australia},
}

The retrieval and browsing of diagrammatic information extracted from hand-drawn diagrams would open up a rich form of information interaction. However, such sketches currently require hand- annotations in order to be understood by the computer. While improvements in sketch recognition algorithms have enabled automatic recognition for T ablet PC- sketched diagrams, such progress has been constrained to online algorithms. As a result, offline algorithms that are relevant to diagrams sketched on paper remain dominantly domain-dependent, and are also restrictive in the number of diagrams that can be understood. In this paper, we discuss our research aims for providing users with information interaction that exploit the advantages of automatic correction capabilities found in online sketch recognition algorithms, with the low-cost advantages found in paper usage.

@inproceedings{pankajrajanpaultaeletracyhammond2010EvaluationofPaperPenbasedSketchingInterfaceConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajan, Pankaj and Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Distributed Multimedia Systems (DMS)},
  title =          {Evaluation of Paper-Pen based Sketching Interface},
  pages =          {321-326},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {October 14-16,},
  publisher =      {SRL},
  address =        {Oak Brook, IL, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 1-891706-28-4},
}

The role of sketch recognition since its inception has been to allow the computer to passively understand the drawn input that a user provides. Whether via gesture, shape, order, or context, the computer does its best to infer what is being drawn and then triggers the appropriate response, usually beautification. However, sketch recognition has matured enough to have the capability to inform the user that his/her drawn input could be better. For this position paper, we lobby for the use of sketch recognition to instruct students in their drawing ability, and then present an overview of research work incorporating sketch recognition interfaces that have advanced such grounds.

@inproceedings{paultaeledanieldixontracyhammond2010TellingtheUserNoSketchRecognitionforImprovingSketchTechniqueConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Dixon, Daniel and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {SkCHI: Designing Sketch Recognition Interfaces, A CHI 2010 Workshop},
  title =          {Telling the User, “No”: Sketch Recognition for Improving Sketch Technique},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {April 10,},
  address =        {Atlanta, GA, USA},
}

The non-Romanized Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I (MPS1) system is a highly advantageous phonetic system for native English users studying Chinese Mandarin to learn, yet its steep initial learning curve discourages language programs to instead adopt Romanized phonetic systems. Computer-assisted language instruction (CALI) can greatly reduce this learning curve, in order to enable students to sooner benefit from the long-term advantages presented in MPS1 usage during the course of Chinese Mandarin study. Unfortunately, the technologies surrounding existing online handwriting recognition algorithms and CALI applications are insufficient in providing a ‘‘dynamic’’ counterpart to traditional paper-based workbooks employed in the classroom setting. In this paper, we describe our sketch recognition-based LAMPS system for teaching MPS1 by emulating the naturalness and realism of paper-based workbooks, while extending their functionality with human instructor-level critique and assessment at an automated level.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2010LAMPSASketchRecognitionBasedTeachingToolforMandarinPhoneticSymbolsIConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Journal of Visual Languages \& Computing (JLVC)},
  title =          {LAMPS: A Sketch Recognition-Based Teaching Tool for Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I},
  volume =         {21-2},
  pages =          {109-120},
  year =           {2010},
  month =          {April},
  publisher =      {Elsevier},
}

SOUSA is a Sketch-based Online User Study Application developed to aid in the creation of a universal, standardized set of sketch data. This paper describes a Secure and Searchable interface created for SOUSA (SSSOUSA) to make sketch data collection more efficient and practical for researchers and more accessible to a general audience. The expected contribution of our work will be an increase in participation of researchers and practitioners in the field of sketch recognition. We ultimately hope to develop a large, robust repository of sketch data. A motivating factor behind our work is to allow sketch recognition researchers to focus on higher-level tasks, rather than data collection. Features of our interface include a standardized collection mechanism and set of sketch data, which will allow new sketch recognition algorithms to be compared more easily with existing models. Our new interface will allow researchers to download and search their own, as well as other publically available, data gathered from collection and verification studies. This new interface will be hosted by the Sketch Recognition Laboratory at Texas A&M University, providing researchers a single, unified solution for sketch data collection and management.

@inproceedings{brandonkasteremilyjacobsontracyhammond2009SSSOUSAAutomaticallyGeneratingSecureandSearchableDataCollectionStudiesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Kaster, Brandon and Jacobson, Emily and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {International Workshop on Visual Languages and Computing (VLC)},
  title =          {SSSOUSA: Automatically Generating Secure and Searchable Data Collection Studies},
  pages =          {6 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {September 10-12,},
  publisher =      {DMS},
  address =        {Redwood City, CA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{maartenvanzomerenjoshuapescheltimothymanngabeknezekjamesdoebblerjeremydavistracyhammondaugustinusoomesrobinmurphy2009HumanRobotInteractionObservationsfromaProtoStudyUsingSUAVsforStructuralInspectionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Maarten van, Zomeren and Peschel, Joshua and Mann, Timothy and Knezek, Gabe and Doebbler, James and Davis, Jeremy and Hammond, Tracy and Oomes, Augustinus and Murphy, Robin},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 4th ACM/IEEE international Conference on Human Robot Interaction (HRI)},
  title =          {Human-Robot Interaction Observations from a Proto-Study Using SUAVs for Structural Inspection},
  pages =          {235-236},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {March 11-13,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {San Diego, CA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-404-1},
}

In this paper we describe the competition to be conducted at the Sketch Recognition Workshop of IUI 2009. The Sketch Recognition Competition promotes discussion, innovation, and competition within the sketch recognition community.

@inproceedings{paulcoreybrianeofftracyhammond2009SketchOffASketchRecognitionCompetitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Corey, Paul and Eoff, Brian and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {Sketch Off: A Sketch Recognition Competition},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

Although stroke-based systems may be considered the state- of-the-art in low-level sketch recognition, they still contain constraints and intricacies that may be invisible to most novice users. In this paper, we identify some common assumptions and problems of stroke-based systems and propose a plan for the development of a new low-level framework to deal with these issues. The broader impact of this framework will be the development of sketch recognition systems which place fewer (and hopefully no) drawing constraints on users and will allow for more natural sketching, starting at the lowest and most fundamental level.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsontracyhammond2009TowardsaFrameworkforTrulyNaturalLowlevelSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {Towards a Framework for Truly Natural Low-level Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

The goal of our research is to combine the power of stroke-based sketch recognition with the flexibility and ease of use of a piece of paper. In this paper we will present preliminary results of our algorithm integrated with an online sketch recognition system built with LADDER. We have also presented a comparison of our paper based interface with tablet based sketching interface.

@inproceedings{pankajrajantracyhammond2009ApplyingOnlineSketchRecognitionAlgorithmstoaScannedInSketchConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajan, Pankaj and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces Posters (IUI)},
  title =          {Applying Online Sketch Recognition Algorithms to a Scanned-In Sketch},
  pages =          {3 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

This paper presents an online system for recognizing isolated, hand-sketched Urdu characters drawn on a Tablet PC. Attributes of Urdu characters are analyzed to define a set of features which are then trained and classified using a weighted, linear classifier. As a proof of concept, we have integrated our recognition algorithm into an application used to help people learn the Urdu language. Preliminary results obtained from our studies showed an accuracy of 92.8% for native Urdu writers.

@inproceedings{shahzadnabeelbrandonpaulsontracyhammond2009UrduQaedaRecognitionSystemforIsolatedUrduCharactersConferencePapers,
  author =         {Nabeel, Shahzad and Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {Urdu Qaeda: Recognition System for Isolated Urdu Characters},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

Editing a sketch should be one of the essential features provided by sketch recognition systems to allow people to modify what they have drawn, without having to delete and redraw shapes. This paper introduces a control point based editing approach we call RingEdit. RingEdit differs from other sketch editors in that the user actually draws their own control points on the sketch, rather than relying on control points generated by the recognition system. It provides modes that allow moving, rotating, scaling, and bending on both the shape level and stroke level. RingEdit shows great editing capabilities.

@inproceedings{zhuyuxiangjoshjohnstontracyhammond2009RingEditAControlPointBasedEditingApproachinSketchRecognitionSystemsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Yuxiang, Zhu and Johnston, Joshua and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {RingEdit: A Control Point Based Editing Approach in Sketch Recognition Systems},
  pages =          {6 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

Most sketch recognition systems are accurate in recognizing either text or shape (graphic) ink strokes, but not both. Distinguishing between shape and text strokes is, therefore, a critical task in recognizing hand-drawn digital ink diagrams that contain text labels and annotations. We have found the ‘entropy rate’ to be an accurate criterion of classification. We found that the entropy rate is significantly higher for text strokes compared to shape strokes and can serve as a distinguishing factor between the two. Using a single feature – zero-order entropy rate – our system produced a correct classification rate of 92.06% on test data belonging to diagrammatic domain for which the threshold was trained on. It also performed favorably on an unseen domain for which no training examples were supplied.

@inproceedings{akshaybhattracyhammond2009UsingEntropytoDistinguishShapeVersusTextinHandDrawnDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Bhat, Akshay and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)},
  title =          {Using Entropy to Distinguish Shape Versus Text in Hand-Drawn Diagrams},
  pages =          {1395-1400},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {July 11-17,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Pasadena, CA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-57735-426-0, \url{http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/IJCAI/IJCAI-09/paper/download/592/906}},
}

When asked to draw, most people are hesitant because they believe themselves unable to draw well and are unsure of what adjustments are needed when drawing to make their sketch look right. This poster presents work on an application, iCanDraw?, that guides a user in drawing a human face through assistive sketch recognition. The major contributions are a methodology for an application to process and guide from a reference image as well as nine design principles for assistive sketch recognition.

@inproceedings{danieldixonmanojprasadtracyhammond2009iCanDrawAMethodologyforUsingAssistiveSketchRecognitiontoImproveaUsersDrawingAbilityConferencePapers,
  author =         {Dixon, Daniel and Prasad, Manoj and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) Posters},
  title =          {iCanDraw?: A Methodology for Using Assistive Sketch Recognition to Improve a Userʼs Drawing Ability},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {October 4-7},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Vancouver, Canada, Canada},
}

With the proliferation of tablet PCs and multi-touch computers, collaborative input on a single sketched surface is becoming more and more prevalent. The ability to identify which user draws a specific stroke on a shared surface is widely useful in a) security/forensics research, by effectively identifying a forgery, b) sketch recognition, by providing the ability to employ user- dependent recognition algorithms on a multi-user system, and c) multi-user collaborative systems, by effectively discriminating whose stroke is whose in a complicated diagram. To ensure an adaptive user interface, we cannot expect nor require that users will self-identify nor restrict themselves to a single pen. Instead, we prefer a system that can automatically determine a stroke’s owner, even when strokes by different users are drawn with the same pen, in close proximity, and near in timing. We present the results of an experiment that shows that the creator of an individual pen strokes can be determined with high accuracy, without supra-stroke context (such as timing, pen- ID, nor location), and based solely on the physical mechanics of how these strokes are drawn (specifically, pen tilt, pressure, and speed). Results from free-form drawing data, including text and doodles, but not signature data, show that our methods differentiate a single stroke (such as that of a dot of an ‘i’) between two users at an accuracy of 97.5% and between ten users at an accuracy of 83.5%.

@inproceedings{brianeofftracyhammond2009WhoDottedThatiContextFreeUserDifferentiationthroughPressureandTiltPenDataConferencePapers,
  author =         {Eoff, Brian and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of Graphics Interface (GI). Kelowna, Canada. Canadian Information Processing Society, May 25-27, 2009},
  title =          {Who Dotted That 'i'?: Context Free User Differentiation through Pressure and Tilt Pen Data},
  pages =          {149-156},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {May 25-27,},
  publisher =      {Canadian Information Processing Society},
  address =        {Kelowna, Canada, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-56881-470-4},
}

Sketch recognition is the automated recognition of hand-drawn diagrams. When allowing users to sketch as they would naturally, users may draw shapes in an interspersed manner, starting a second shape before finishing the first. In order to provide freedom to draw interspersed shapes, an exponential combination of subshapes must be considered. Because of this, most sketch recognition systems either choose not to handle interspersing, or handle only a limited pre-defined amount of interspersing. Our goal is to eliminate such interspersing drawing constraints from the sketcher. This paper presents a high-level recognition algorithm that, while still exponential, allows for complete interspersing freedom, running in near real-time through early effective sub-tree pruning. At the core of the algorithm is an indexing technique that takes advantage of geometric sketch recognition techniques to index each shape for efficient access and fast pruning during recognition. We have stress- tested our algorithm to show that the system recognizes shapes in less than a second even with over a hundred candidate subshapes on screen.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2009RecognizingInterspersedSketchesQuicklyConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of Graphics Interface (GI). Kelowna, Canada. Canadian Information Processing Society, May 25-27, 2009},
  title =          {Recognizing Interspersed Sketches Quickly},
  pages =          {157-166},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {May 25-27,},
  publisher =      {Canadian Information Processing Society},
  address =        {Kelowna, Canada, Canada},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-56881-470-4},
}

This paper describes the IUI’09 workshop on Sketch Recognition.

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2009IUI09WorkshopSummarySketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {IUI'09 Workshop Summary: Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {501-502},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-168-2},
}

Sketch recognition is the automated understanding of hand-drawn diagrams. Despite the prevalence of keyboards and mice, hand-drawings still pervade in education, design, and other diagrams. This full day tutorial explains why sketch recognition is important, the underlying algorithms, how sketch recognition can be used in traditional interfaces, and the field’s experiences with sketch recognition used in different domains.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondbrandonpaulson2009EurographicsTutorialonSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Paulson, Brandon},
  booktitle =      {Eurographics 2009-Tutorials},
  title =          {Eurographics Tutorial on Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {March 30 -April 3,},
  publisher =      {The Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Munich, Germany, Germany},
}

Freehand drawing on a computer screen allows users to provide input through a natural mode of human interaction. With this freedom of expression, however, there exists a paradoxical limitation: the user is bound through the existing interface to the fixed drawing surface. In this work, we overcome this limitation by presenting a surfaceless pen-based interface with an application in the field of sketch recognition. A pilot study was conducted to examine the usability of the surfaceless pen-based interface. Results indicated that learning to use the device is relatively straightforward, but that interaction difficulty increases in a directly proportionally manner with drawing complexity.

@inproceedings{joshuapeschelbrandonpaulsontracyhammond2009ASurfacelessPenBasedInterfaceConferencePapers,
  author =         {Peschel, Joshua and Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Seventh ACM Conference on Creativity and Cognition},
  title =          {A Surfaceless Pen-Based Interface},
  pages =          {433-434},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {October 27-30,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Berkeley, CA, USA},
}

Language students can increase their effectiveness in learning written Japanese by mastering the visual structure and written technique of Japanese kanji. Yet, existing kanji handwriting recognition systems do not assess the written technique sufficiently enough to discourage students from developing bad learning habits. In this paper, we describe our work on Hashigo, a kanji sketch interactive system which achieves human instructor-level critique and feedback on both the visual structure and written technique of students’ sketched kanji. This type of automated critique and feedback allows students to target and correct specific deficiencies in their sketches that, if left untreated, are detrimental to effective long-term kanji learning.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2009HashigoANextGenerationSketchInteractiveSystemforJapaneseKanjiConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-First Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference (IAAI)},
  title =          {Hashigo: A Next-Generation Sketch Interactive System for Japanese Kanji},
  pages =          {153-158},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {July 14-16,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Pasadena, CA, USA},
}

Existing computer-assisted instructional (CAI) techniques for introductory biology are presently restrictive in scope, due to their focus on utilizing drills that aim for rote memorization instead of providing interaction that aids in intuitive understanding. In this paper, we discuss a prototype system for assessing learner understanding of introductory cell biology concepts using sketch-based interaction and recognition techniques.

@inproceedings{paultaelejoshuapescheltracyhammond2009ASketchInteractiveApproachtoComputerAssistedBiologyInstructionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Peschel, Joshua and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces Posters (IUI)},
  title =          {A Sketch Interactive Approach to Computer-Assisted Biology Instruction},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

A mobile device’s small interaction space and undersized keyboard can sometimes make textual input difficult and impractical. Many mobile devices are predisposed for sketch- ing as they come with a stylus or touch-screen capabilities, and sketched icons are a natural way to label objects on such a device. In this paper we present a sketch recognition over- lay in Google Maps that allows users to search for location markers based on simple graphics and hand-drawn symbols.

@inproceedings{aaronwolinbrianeofftracyhammond2009SearchYourMobileSketchImprovingtheRatioofInteractiontoInformationonMobileDevicesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Wolin, Aaron and Eoff, Brian and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Workshop on Sketch Recognition at the 14th International Conference of Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {Search Your Mobile Sketch: Improving the Ratio of Interaction to Information on Mobile Devices},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {February 8-11,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sanibel, FL, USA},
}

Free-sketch recognition systems attempt to recognize freely-drawn sketches without placing stylistic constraints on the users. Such systems often recognize shapes by using geometric primitives that describe the shape’s appearance rather than how it was drawn. A free-sketch recognition system necessarily allows users to draw several primitives using a single stroke. Corner finding, or vertex detection, is used to segment these strokes into their underlying primitives (lines and arcs), which in turn can be passed to the geometric recognizers. In this paper, we present a new multi-pass corner finding algorithm called MergeCF that is based on continually merging smaller stroke segments with similar, larger stroke segments in order to eliminate false positive corners. We compare MergeCF to two benchmark corner finders with substantial improvements in corner detection.

@inproceedings{aaronwolinbrandonpaulsontracyhammond2009SortMergeRepeatAnAlgorithmforEffectivelyFindingCornersinHandSketchedStrokesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Wolin, Aaron and Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 6th Eurographics Symposium on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {Sort, Merge, Repeat: An Algorithm for Effectively Finding Corners in Hand-Sketched Strokes},
  pages =          {93-100},
  year =           {2009},
  month =          {August 1-2,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {New Orleans, LA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-602-1},
}

Graphical diagrams are an important part of the educational process, as students draw diagrams in fields as various as business, math, computer science, engineering, music, and many others. Hand-sketched student diagrams aid in active learning and creative processes. However, correcting hand-sketch diagrams take a significant amount of teacher time, and are thus often left out of the testing process. Automatically correcting these diagrams can provide immediate student and instructor feedback while significantly reducing instructor time. This workshop will introduce the audience to sketch recognition tools that are available for use in their classroom for active learning, immediate feedback, and automated assessment.

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2008WorkshopIntegratingSketchRecognitionTechnologiesIntoYourClassroomConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {38th Annual Frontiers in Education Conference},
  title =          {Workshop - Integrating Sketch Recognition Technologies Into Your Classroom},
  pages =          {W2C-1},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {October 22-25,},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Saratoga Springs, NY, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4244-1969-2},
}

Activity recognition plays a key role in providing information for context-aware applications. When attempting to model activities, some researchers have looked towards Activity Theory, which theorizes that activities have objectives and are accomplished through tools and objects. The goal of this paper is to determine if hand posture can be used as a cue to determine the types of interactions a user has with objects in a desk/office environment. Furthermore, we wish to determine if hand posture is user-independent across all users when interacting with the same objects in a natural manner. Our initial experiments indicate that a) hand posture can be used to determine object interaction, with accuracy rates above 94% for a user-dependent system, and b) hand posture is dependent upon the individual user when users are allowed to interact with objects as they would naturally.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsontracyhammond2008OfficeActivityRecognitionUsingHandPostureCuesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 22nd British HCI Group Annual Conference on People and Computers: Culture, Creativity, Interaction},
  title =          {Office Activity Recognition Using Hand Posture Cues},
  volume =         {2},
  pages =          {75-78},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 1-5,},
  publisher =      {British Computer Society},
  address =        {Liverpool, England, England},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-906124-06-9},
}

As pen-based interfaces become more popular in to- day’s applications, the need for algorithms to accurately recognize hand-drawn sketches and shapes has increased. In many cases, complex shapes can be constructed hierarchically as a combination of smaller primitive shapes meeting certain geometric constraints. However, in order to construct higher level shapes, it is imperative to accurately recognize the lower-level primitives. Two approaches have become widespread in the sketch recognition field for recognizing lower-level primitives: gesture-based recognition and geometric-based recognition. Our goal is to use a hybrid approach that combines features from both traditional gesture- based recognition systems and geometric-based recognition systems. In this paper, we show that we can produce a system with high recognition rates while providing the added benefit of being able to produce normalized confidence values for alternative interpretations; something most geometric-based recognizers lack. More significantly, results from feature subset selection indicate that geometric features aid the recognition process more than gesture-based features when given naturally sketched data.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsonpankajrajanpedrodavalosricardogutierrezosunatracyhammond2008WhatNoRubineFeaturesUsingGeometricBasedFeaturestoProduceNormalizedConfidenceValuesforSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Rajan, Pankaj and Davalos, Pedro and Gutierrez-Osuna, Ricardo and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {HCC Workshop: Sketch Tools for Diagramming (VL/HCC)},
  title =          {What!?! No Rubine Features?: Using Geometric-Based Features to Produce Normalized Confidence Values for Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {57-63},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 15-19,},
  address =        {Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany, Germany},
}

The statically-determinate, pin-connected truss is a basic structural element used by engineers to create larger and more complex systems. Truss analysis and design are topics that virtually all students who study engineering mechanics are required to master, many of whom may experience difficulty with initial understanding. The mathematics used to analyze truss systems typically requires lengthy hand calculations or the assistance of proprietary computer-aided design (CAD) programs. To expedite work in this domain, we propose: STRAT (Sketched-Truss Recognition and Analysis Tool), a freehand sketch recognition system for solving truss problems. The STRAT system allows users to rapidly determine all of the unknown forces in a truss, using only a hand-drawn sketch of the truss itself. The focus of this article covers the design methodology and implementation of the STRAT system. Results from a preliminary user study are also presented.

@inproceedings{joshuapescheltracyhammond2008STRATASketchedTrussRecognitionandAnalysisToolConferencePapers,
  author =         {Peschel, Joshua and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {2008 International Workshop on Visual Languages and Computing (VLC) at the 14th International Conference on distributed Multimedia Systems (DMS)},
  title =          {STRAT: A Sketched-Truss Recognition and Analysis Tool},
  pages =          {282-287},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 4-6,},
  publisher =      {Knowledge Systems Instistute},
  address =        {Boston, MA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{berylplimmertracyhammond2008GettingStartedwithSketchToolsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Plimmer, Beryl and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Fifth International Conference on the Theory and Application of Diagrams (Diagrams 2008), Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence},
  title =          {Getting Started with Sketch Tools},
  pages =          { 9-12},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 19-21,},
  publisher =      {Springer Berlin Heidelberg},
  address =        {Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany, Germany},
}

@inproceedings{berylplimmertracyhammond2008WorkshoponSketchToolsforDiagrammingConferencePapers,
  author =         {Plimmer, Beryl and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC)},
  title =          {Workshop on Sketch Tools for Diagramming},
  pages =          {4},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 15-19,},
  publisher =      {SRL},
  address =        {Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany, Germany},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-4244-2528-0},
}

Inputting written Chinese, unlike written English, is a non-trivial operation using a standard keyboard. To accommodate this operation, numerous existing phonetic systems using the Roman alphabet were adopted as a means of input while still making use of a Western keyboard. With the growing prevalence of computing devices capable of pen-based input, naturally sketching written Chinese using a phonetic system becomes possible, and is also generally faster and simpler than sketching entire Chinese characters. One method for sketching Chinese characters for computing devices capable of pen-based input involves using an existing non-alphabetic phonetic system called the Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I (MPS1). The benefits of inputting Chinese characters by its corresponding MPS1 symbols – unlike letters from its alphabetic-based counterpart – is that it retains the phonemic components of the corresponding Chinese characters. The work in the paper describes our geometric-based MPS1 recognition system, a system designed particularly for novice users of MPS1 symbols that gives reasonable vision-based recognition rates and provides useful feedback for symbols drawn with incorrect sketching technique such as stroke order.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2008AGeometricBasedSketchRecognitionApproachforHandwrittenMandarinPhoneticSymbolsIConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {2008 International Workshop on Visual Languages and Computing (VLC) at the 14th International Conference on distributed Multimedia Systems (DMS)},
  title =          {A Geometric-Based Sketch Recognition Approach for Handwritten Mandarin Phonetic Symbols I},
  pages =          {6 pages},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 4-6,},
  publisher =      {Knowledge Systems Instistute},
  address =        {Boston, MA, USA},
}

Sketch recognition systems usually recognize strokes either as stylistic gestures or geometric shapes. Both techniques have their advantages. This paper presents a method for integrating gesture-based and geometric recognition techniques, significantly outperforming either technique on its own.

@inproceedings{paulcoreytracyhammond2008GLADDERCombiningGestureandGeometricSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Corey, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Student Abstracts},
  title =          {GLADDER: Combining Gesture and Geometric Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {1788-1789},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 13-17,},
  publisher =      { AAAI},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
}

In hand-sketched drawings, nearly identical strokes may have different meanings to a user. For instance, a scribble could signify either that a shape should be filled in or that it should be deleted. This work describes a method for determining user intention in drawing scribbles in the context of a pen-based computer sketch. Our study shows that given two strokes, a circle and a scribble, two features (bounding ratio and density) can quickly and effectively determine a user’s intention.

@inproceedings{katiedahmentracyhammond2008DistinguishingbetweenSketchedScribbleLookAlikesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Dahmen, Katie and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Student Abstracts},
  title =          {Distinguishing between Sketched Scribble Look Alikes},
  pages =          {1790-1791},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 13-17,},
  publisher =      { AAAI},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
}

We present preliminary results of using physical features of a user’s sketching style, such as pen tilt and pressure, to identify a user from their sketched strokes.

@inproceedings{brianeofftracyhammond2008UserIdentificationbyMeansofSketchedStrokeFeaturesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Eoff, Brian and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Student Abstracts},
  title =          {User Identification by Means of Sketched Stroke Features},
  pages =          {1794-1795},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 13-17,},
  publisher =      { AAAI},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
}

Computer-based games and technologies can be significant aids for helping children learn. However, most computer- based games simply address the learning styles of visual and auditory learners. Sketch- based interfaces, however, can also address the needs of those children who learn better through tactile and kinesthetic approaches. Furthermore, sketch recognition can allow for automatic feedback to aid children without the explicit need for teacher to be present. In this paper, we present various sketch- based tools and games that promote tactile learning and entertainment for children.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsonbrianeoffaaronwolinjoshjohnstontracyhammond2008SketchBasedEducationalGamesDrawingKidsAwayfromTraditionalInterfacesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Eoff, Brian and Wolin, Aaron and Johnston, Joshua and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 7th international conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC)},
  title =          {Sketch-Based Educational Games: Drawing Kids Away from Traditional Interfaces},
  pages =          {133-136},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 11-13,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-59593-994-4},
}

Mouse and keyboard interfaces handle traditional text-based queries, and standard search engines provide for effective text-based search. However, everyday documents are filled with not only text, but photos, cartoons, diagrams, and sketches. These images can often be easier to recall than the surrounding text. In an effort to make human computer interaction handle more forms of human-human inter- action, sketching has recently become an important means of interacting with computer systems. We propose extend- ing the traditional monomodal model of text-based search to include the capabilities of sketch-based search. Our goal is to create a sketch-based search that can find documents from a single query sketch. We imagine an important use for this technology would be to allow users to search a computerized laboratory notebook for a previously drawn sketch. Because such as sketch will have initially been drawn only a single time, it is important that the search-by-sketch system (1) recognize a wide range of shapes that are not necessarily geometric nor drawn in the same way each time, (2) recognize a query example from only one initial training example, and (3) learn from successful queries to improve accuracy over time. We present here such an algorithm. To test the algorithm, we implemented a proof-of-concept-system: MARQS, a system that uses sketches to query existing media albums. Preliminary results show that the system yielded an average search rank of 1.51, indicating that the correct sketch is presented as either the top or second search result on average.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsontracyhammond2008MarqsRetrievingSketchesLearnedfromaSingleExampleUsingaDualClassifierConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces},
  title =          {Marqs: Retrieving Sketches Learned from a Single Example Using a Dual-Classifier},
  volume =         {2-1},
  pages =          {3-11},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July},
  publisher =      {Springer-Verlag},
}

Unlike English, where unfamiliar words can be queried for its meaning by typing out its letters, the analogous operation in Chinese is far from trivial due to the nature of its written language. One approach for querying Chinese characters involve referencing their dictionary component called radicals. This is advantageous since users would not need to know their pronunciation nor their stroke-order, a requirement in other querying approaches. Currently though, sketching a character’s radical for querying is an unsupported capability in existing systems. Using the geometric-based LADDER sketching language combined with the Sezgin low- level recognizer, we were able to construct an application which can first recognize handwritten sketches of Chinese radical, and then output candidate Chinese characters which contain that radical. Thus, we were able to demonstrate that a geometric-based sketch recognition approach can be used to easily build applications for recognizing symbols related to Chinese characters while having reasonable recognition rates. Unlike current image-based recognition systems, our system also maintains stroke order information of characters. Since stroke order is important in written Chinese, our system can be easily expanded for use in Chinese language education by providing visual feedback to students on correct stroke order.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2008UsingaGeometricBasedSketchRecognitionApproachtoSketchChineseRadicalsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Student Abstracts},
  title =          {Using a Geometric-Based Sketch Recognition Approach to Sketch Chinese Radicals},
  pages =          {1832-1833},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 13-17,},
  publisher =      { AAAI},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
}

Although existing domain-specific datasets are readily available, most sketch recognition researchers are forced to collect new data for their particular domain. Creating tools to collect and label sketched data can take time, and, if every researcher creates their own toolset, much time is wasted that could be better suited toward advanced research. Additionally, it is often the case that other researchers have performed collection studies and collected the same types of sketch data, resulting in large duplications of effort. We propose, and have built, a general-purpose sketch collection and verification tool that allows researchers to design custom user studies through an online applet residing on our group’s web page. By hosting such a tool through our site, we hope to provide researchers with a quick and easy way of collecting data. Additionally, our tool serves to create a universal repository of sketch data that can be made readily available to other sketch recognition researchers.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsonaaronwolinjoshjohnstontracyhammond2008SOUSASketchbasedOnlineUserStudyAppletConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Wolin, Aaron and Johnston, Joshua and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Fifth Eurographics Conference on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {SOUSA: Sketch-based Online User Study Applet},
  pages =          {8 pages},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {June 11-13,},
  publisher =      {Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Annecy, France, France},
}

Sketching is a way of conveying ideas to people of diverse backgrounds and culture without any linguistic medium. With the advent of inexpensive tablet PCs, online sketches have become more common, allowing for stroke-based sketch recognition techniques, more powerful editing techniques, and automatic simulation of recognized diagrams. Online sketches provide significantly more information than paper sketches, but they still do not provide the flexibility, naturalness, and simplicity of a simple piece of paper. Recognition methods exist for paper sketches, but they tend to be domain specific and don’t benefit from the advances of stroke-based sketch recognition. Our goal is to combine the power of stroke-based sketch recognition with the flexibility and ease of use of a piece of paper. In this paper we will present a stroke-tracing algorithm that can be used to extract stroke data from the pixilated image of the sketch drawn on paper. The presented method both handles overlapping strokes and also attempts to capture sequencing information, which is helpful in many sketch recognition techniques. We present preliminary results of our algorithm on several paper-drawn hand-sketched scanned-in pixilated images.

@inproceedings{pankajrajantracyhammond2008FromPapertoMachineExtractingStrokesfromImagesforUseinSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Rajan, Pankaj and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Fifth Eurographics Conference on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {From Paper to Machine: Extracting Strokes from Images for Use in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {8 pages},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {June 11-13,},
  publisher =      { Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Annecy, France, France},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-905674-07-1},
}

@inproceedings{aaronwolinbrianeofftracyhammond2008ShortStrawASimpleandEffectiveCornerFinderforPolylinesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Wolin, Aaron and Eoff, Brian and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Fifth Eurographics Conference on Sketch-Based Interfaces and Modeling (SBIM)},
  title =          {ShortStraw: A Simple and Effective Corner Finder for Polylines},
  pages =          {33-40},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {June 11-13,},
  publisher =      { Eurographics Association},
  address =        {Annecy, France, France},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-905674-07-1},
}

Sketch recognition techniques have generally fallen into two camps. Gesture-based techniques, such as those used by the Palm Pilot’s Graffiti, can provide high- accuracy, but require the user to learn a particular drawing style in order for shapes to be recognized. Free-sketch recognition allows users to draw shapes as they would naturally, but most current techniques have low accuracies or require significant domain-level tweaking to make them usable. Our goal is to recognize free-hand sketches with high accuracy by developing generalized techniques that work for a variety of domains, including design and education. This is a work-in-progress, but we have made significant advancements toward our over-arching goal.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondbrianeoffbrandonpaulsonaaronwolinkatiedahmenjoshjohnstonpankajrajan2008FreeSketchRecognitionPuttingtheCHIinSketchingConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Eoff, Brian and Paulson, Brandon and Wolin, Aaron and Dahmen, Katie and Johnston, Joshua and Rajan, Pankaj},
  booktitle =      {CHI'08 Axtended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI)},
  title =          {Free-Sketch Recognition: Putting the CHI in Sketching},
  pages =          {3027-3032},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {April 5-10,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Florence, Italy, Italy},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-60558-012-8},
}

Sketching is a natural form of human communication and has become an increasingly popular tool for interacting with user interfaces. In order to facilitate the integration of sketching into traditional user interfaces, we must first develop accurate ways of recognizing users’ intentions while providing feedback to catch recognition problems early in the sketching process. One approach to sketch recognition has been to recognize low-level primitives and then hierarchically construct higher-level shapes based on geometric constraints defined by the user; however, current low-level recognizers only handle a few number of primitive shapes. We propose a new low-level recognition and beautification system that can recognize eight primitive shapes, as well as combinations of these primitives, with recognition rates at 98.56%. Our system also automatically generates beautified versions of these shapes to provide feedback early in the sketching process. In addition to looking at geometric perception, much of our recognition success can be attributed to two new features, along with a new ranking algorithm, which have proven to be significant in distinguishing polylines from curved segments.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsontracyhammond2008PaleoSketchAccuratePrimitiveSketchRecognitionandBeautificationConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)},
  title =          {PaleoSketch: Accurate Primitive Sketch Recognition and Beautification},
  pages =          {10 pages},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {January 13-16,},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Canary Islands, Spain, Spain},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-59593-987-6, \url{https://doi.org/10.1145/1378773.1378775}},
}

Current feature-based methods for sketch recognition systems rely on human-selected features. Certain machine learning techniques have been found to be good nonlinear features extractors. In this paper, we apply a manifold learning method, kernel Isomap, with a new algorithm for multi-stroke sketch recognition, which significantly outperforms the standard feature- based techniques.

@inproceedings{heeyoulchoitracyhammond2008SketchRecognitionBasedonManifoldLearningConferencePapers,
  author =         {Choi, Heeyoul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Student Abstracts},
  title =          {Sketch Recognition Based on Manifold Learning},
  pages =          {1786-1787},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 13-17,},
  publisher =      { AAAI},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
}

Current feature-based gesture recognition systems use human-chosen features to perform recognition. Effective features for classification can also be automatically learned and chosen by the computer. In other recognition domains, such as face recognition, manifold learning methods have been found to be good nonlinear feature extractors. Few manifold learning algorithms, however, have been applied to gesture recognition. Current manifold learning techniques focus only on spatial information, making them undesirable for use in the domain of gesture recognition where stroke timing data can provide helpful insight into the recognition of hand- drawn symbols. In this paper, we develop a new algorithm for multi-stroke gesture recognition, which integrates timing data into a manifold learning algorithm based on a kernel Isomap. Experimental results show it to perform better than traditional human-chosen feature-based systems.

@inproceedings{heeyoulchoibrandonpaulsontracyhammond2008GestureRecognitionBasedonManifoldLearningConferencePapers,
  author =         {Choi, Heeyoul and Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Structural, Syntactic, and Statistical Pattern Recognition (SSPR), Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
  title =          {Gesture Recognition Based on Manifold Learning},
  volume =         {5342},
  pages =          {247-256},
  year =           {2008},
  publisher =      {Springer Berlin Heidelberg},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-3-540-89688-3},
}

Knowledge of over a thousand Chinese characters is necessary to effectively communicate in written Chinese and Japanese, so writing patterns such as stroke order and direction are heavily emphasized to students for efficient memorization. Pedagogical methods for Chinese characters can greatly benefit from sketch diagramming tools, since they can automate the task of critiquing students' writing technique. Falling cost and greater advances made in pen-based computing device even allow language programs to afford deploying these systems for augmenting their existing curriculum. While current vision-based techniques for sketching Chinese characters could be adopted for their high visual recognition rates, they do not directly support technique recognition and are unable to provide feedback for critiquing technique. A geometric-based approach can accomplish this task, though visual recognition rates have largely been untested. For our paper, we analyze the feasibility of a geometric- approach in visual recognition, as well as discuss its feasibility for use in a learning tool for teaching Chinese characters.

@inproceedings{paultaeletracyhammond2008ChineseCharactersasSketchDiagramsUsingaGeometricBasedApproachConferencePapers,
  author =         {Taele, Paul and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2008 IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC) Workshop on Sketch Tools for Diagramming},
  title =          {Chinese Characters as Sketch Diagrams Using a Geometric-Based Approach},
  pages =          {74-82},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {September 15-19,},
  publisher =      {SRL},
  address =        {Herrsching am Ammersee, Germany, Germany},
}

We present a new corner finding algorithm based on merging like stroke segmentations together in order to eliminate false positive corners. We compare our system to two benchmark corner finders with substantial improvements in both polyline and complex fits.

@inproceedings{aaronwolinbrandonpaulsontracyhammond2008EliminatingFalsePositivesduringCornerFindingbyMergingSimilarSegmentsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Wolin, Aaron and Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Twenty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Student Abstracts},
  title =          {Eliminating False Positives during Corner Finding by Merging Similar Segments},
  pages =          {1836-1837},
  year =           {2008},
  month =          {July 13-17,},
  publisher =      { AAAI},
  address =        {Chicago, IL, USA},
}

Constraint satisfaction problems (CSPs) are ubiquitous in many real-world contexts. However, modeling a problem as a CSP can be very challenging, usually requiring considerable expertise. In many application domains there can often be a domain-specific way of drawing a graphical representation of a problem. Our objective is to develop sketch recognition technology that can recognize hand-drawn representations of problems, and automatically generate constraint satisfaction models of them. This paper describes a sketch recognition system that recognizes and solves a simplified set of hand-drawn constraint problems. Shapes are recognized using a combination of geometric and contextual rules, allowing shapes to be drawn freely, without requiring a specific drawing style.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondbarryosullivan2007RecognizingFreeFormHandSketchedConstraintNetworkDiagramsbyCombiningGeometryandContextConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and O’Sullivan, Barry},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Eurographics Ireland},
  title =          {Recognizing Free-Form Hand-Sketched Constraint Network Diagrams by Combining Geometry and Context},
  pages =          {67-74},
  year =           {2007},
  month =          {December 17,},
  publisher =      {Eurographics},
  address =        {Dublin, Ireland, Ireland},
}

Instructors and students sketch graphical diagrams in a variety of classes from pre-K through higher education. Hand sketching the diagrams can engage students’ creative processes as they watch the diagrams being created in real-time. Animations can help a students’ functional understanding However, hand- sketched diagrams currently remain static and uninterpreted, and animations currently have to be canned pre-made diagrams. Sketch recognition systems recognize hand drawn diagrams, but they take a lot of time and effort to build and require expertise in sketch recognition programming. To simplify the creation of sketch recognition system, we have built LADDER, a language to describe how shapes in a domain are drawn, displayed, and edited for use in sketch recognition, and GUILD, a system to automatically generate user interfaces from LADDER descriptions. The goal of this work is to facilitate the development of sketch recognition systems to allow non-experts in sketch recognition systems, such as teachers develop sketch systems for their classroom. The research is continuously being improved, but thus far, over twenty people have built sketch recognition systems using these technologies.

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2007EnablingInstructorstoDevelopSketchRecognitionApplicationsfortheClassroomConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {37th Annual Frontiers In Education Conference (FIE)},
  title =          {Enabling Instructors to Develop Sketch Recognition Applications for the Classroom},
  pages =          {S3J11-S3J16},
  year =           {2007},
  month =          {October 10-13,},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Milwaukee, WI, USA},
}

Sketch recognition systems are time- consuming to build and require signal-processing expertise if they are to handle the intricacies of each domain. Our goal is to enable user interface designers, who may not have expertise in sketch recognition, to be able to build sketch systems. We have built GUILD to automatically generate sketch recognition UIs from computer-generated or hand- typed LADDER descriptions.

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2007SimplifyingSketchRecognitionUIDevelopmentConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing},
  title =          {Simplifying Sketch Recognition UI Development},
  pages =          {5 pages},
  year =           {2007},
  month =          {October 17-20,},
  publisher =      {Grace Hopper},
  address =        {Orlando, FL, USA},
}

Sketching has been identified as a natural means for human interaction and thus has become commonly incorporated into various user interfaces. Current low-level sketch recognizers have produced good accuracy but recognize only a small set of basic shapes. We propose a low-level sketch recognition and beautification system that uses a hierarchical approach that is capable of recognizing eight primitive shapes, along with complex fits, with preliminary recognition rates around 98.8%. These accuracy rates are comparable to current state- of-the-art recognition systems which recognize a lesser number of primitives. Furthermore, we introduce two new metrics, normalized distance between direction extremes (NDDE) and direction change ratio (DCR), which help aid in distinguishing between polylines and other low-level primitives.

@inproceedings{brandonpaulsontracyhammond2007ASystemforRecognizingandBeautifyingLowLevelSketchShapesUsingNDDEandDCRConferencePapers,
  author =         {Paulson, Brandon and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)},
  title =          {A System for Recognizing and Beautifying Low-Level Sketch Shapes Using NDDE and DCR},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2007},
  month =          {October 7-10},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Newport Rhode Island, USA},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2007SketchRecognitionatTexasAMUniversityConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Brown Workshop on Pen-Centric Computing},
  title =          {Sketch Recognition at Texas A\&M University},
  pages =          {6 pages},
  year =           {2007},
  month =          {March 25,},
  publisher =      {Brown University},
  address =        {Providence, RI, USA},
}

Sketch interfaces provide more natural interaction than the traditional mouse and palette tool, but can be time consuming to build if they have to be built anew for each new domain. A shape description language, such as the LADDER language we created, can significantly reduce the time necessary to create a sketch interface by enabling automatic generation of the interface from a domain description. However, structural shape descriptions, whether written by users or created automatically by the computer, are frequently over- or under- constrained. We present a technique to debug over- and under-constrained shapes using a novel form of active learning that generates its own suspected near-miss examples. Using this technique we implemented a graphical debugging tool for use by sketch interface developers.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2006InteractiveLearningofStructuralShapeDescriptionsfromAutomaticallyGeneratedNearMissExamplesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces},
  title =          {Interactive Learning of Structural Shape Descriptions from Automatically Generated Near-Miss Examples},
  pages =          {210-217},
  year =           {2006},
  month =          {January 29 - February 1n},
  publisher =      {ACM},
  address =        {Sydney, Australia, Austalia},
  note =           {ISBN: 1-59593-287-9},
}

Sketch recognition systems are currently being developed for many domains, but can be time consuming to build if they are to handle the intricacies of each domain. In order to aid sketch-based user interface developers, we have developed tools to simplify the development of a new sketch recognition interface. We created LADDER, a language to describe how sketched diagrams in a domain are drawn, displayed, and edited. We then automatically transform LADDER structural descriptions into domain specific shape recognizers, editing recognizers, and shape exhibitors for use in conjunction with a domain independent sketch recognition system, creating a sketch recognition system for that domain. We have tested our framework by writing several domain descriptions and automatically generating a domain specific sketch recognition system from each description.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2005LADDERASketchingLanguageforUserInterfaceDevelopersConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Computers \& Graphics},
  title =          {LADDER, A Sketching Language for User Interface Developers},
  volume =         {29-4},
  pages =          {518-532},
  year =           {2005},
  publisher =      {Elsevier},
}

Sketch recognition systems are currently being developed for many domains, but can be time consuming to build if they are to handle the intricacies of each do- main. LADDER is a language for describing how do- main shapes are drawn, displayed, and edited in a sketch recognition system for that domain. LADDER shape descriptions can be automatically translated into JAVA code to be compiled with a multi-domain sketch recognition system to create a domain specific sketch interface. In this paper we present SHADY, a graphical tool to aid in the creation and debugging of LADDER shape descriptions. SHADY allows sketch interface developers to enter new shape descriptions or debug previously created descriptions, finding both syntactic and conceptual bugs. SHADY checks to see whether a shape descriptions is over-constrained by allowing the developer to draw sample shapes and then indicating which constraints are not met. This paper also describes work in progress on debugging under-constrained descriptions by automatically generating near-miss shapes.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2004ShadyAShapeDescriptionDebuggerforUseinSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {AAAI Fall Symposium on Making Pen-Based Interaction Intelligent and Natural (AAAI)},
  title =          {Shady: A Shape Description Debugger for Use in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {7 pages},
  year =           {2004},
  month =          {October 22-24,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Arlington, VA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 978-1-57735-217-4},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2004AutomaticallyGeneratingSketchInterfacesfromShapeDescriptionsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 4th Annual MIT Student Oxygen Workshop},
  title =          {Automatically Generating Sketch Interfaces from Shape Descriptions},
  pages =          {4 pages},
  year =           {2004},
  month =          {July},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA},
}

Sketch recognition systems are currently being developed for many domains, but can be time consuming to build if they are to handle the intricacies of each do- main. This paper presents the first translator that takes symbolic shape descriptions (written in the LADDER sketch language) and automatically transforms them into shape recognizers, editing recognizers, and shape exhibitors for use in conjunction with a domain independent sketch recognition system. This transformation allows us to build a single domain independent recognition system that can be customized for multiple do- mains. We have tested our framework by writing several domain descriptions and automatically created a domain specific sketch recognition system for each domain.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2004AutomaticallyTransformingSymbolicShapeDescriptionsforUseinSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the Nineteenth National Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)},
  title =          {Automatically Transforming Symbolic Shape Descriptions for Use in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {450-456},
  year =           {2004},
  month =          {July 25-29,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {San Jose, CA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2004DebuggingShapeDefinitionsforUseinSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {MIT Lab Abstract. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)},
  title =          {Debugging Shape Definitions for Use in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2004},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2004LADDERASketchRecognitionLanguageConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {MIT Lab Abstract. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)},
  title =          {LADDER: A Sketch Recognition Language},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2004},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2004TestingShapeDescrpitionsbyAutomaticallyTranslatingthemforUseinSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {MIT Lab Abstract. Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)},
  title =          {Testing Shape Descrpitions by Automatically Translating them for Use in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2004},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

We have created LADDER, the first language to describe how sketched diagrams in a domain are drawn, displayed, and edited. The difficulty in creating such a language is choosing a set of predefined entities that is broad enough to support a wide range of domains, while remaining narrow enough to be comprehensible. The language consists of predefined shapes, constraints, editing behaviors, and display methods, as well as a syntax for specifying a domain description sketch grammar and extending the language, ensuring that shapes and shape groups from many domains can be described. The language allows shapes to be built hierarchically (e.g., an arrow is built out of three lines), and includes the concept of “abstract shapes”, analogous to abstract classes in an object oriented language. Shape groups describe how multiple do- main shapes interact and can provide the sketch recognition system with information to be used in top-down recognition. Shape groups can also be used to describe “chain-reaction” editing commands that effect multiple shapes at once. To test that recognition is feasible using this language, we have built a simple domain-independent sketch recognition system that parses the domain descriptions and generates the code necessary to recognize the shapes.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2003LADDERALanguagetoDescribeDrawingDisplayandEditinginSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Aritificial Intelligence (IJCAI)},
  title =          {LADDER: A Language to Describe Drawing, Display, and Editing in Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          { 461-467},
  year =           {2003},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Alcapulco, Mexico, Mexico},
}

We present an agent-based system for capturing and indexing software design meetings. During these meetings, designers design object-oriented software tools, including new agent-based technologies for the Intelligent Room, by sketching UML-type designs on a white-board. To capture the design meeting history, the Design Meeting Agent requests available audio, video, and screen capture services from the environment and uses them to capture the entire design meeting. However, finding a particular moment of the design history video and audio records can be cumbersome without a proper indexing scheme. To detect, index, and timestamp significant events in the design process, the Tahuti Agent, also started by the Design Meeting Agent, records, recognizes, and understands the UML-type sketches drawn during the meeting. These timestamps can be mapped to particular moments in the captured video and audio, aiding in the retrieval of the captured information. Metaglue, a multi-agent system, provides the computational glue necessary to bind the distributed components of the system together. It also provides necessary tools for seamless multi-modal interaction between the varied agents and the users.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondkrzysztofgajosrandalldavishowardshrobe2002AnAgentBasedSystemforCapturingandIndexingSoftwareDesignMeetingsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Gajos, Krzysztof and Davis, Randall and Shrobe, Howard},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of International Workshop on Agents In Design, WAID},
  title =          {An Agent-Based System for Capturing and Indexing Software Design Meetings},
  volume =         {2},
  pages =          {18 pages},
  year =           {2002},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

In this paper, we describe a new framework for multi-domain sketch recognition which is being developed by the Design Rationale Group at the MIT AI laboratory. The framework uses a blackboard architecture for recognition in which the knowledge sources are a combination of domain-independent and domain-specific recognizers. Domain-specific recognizers are automatically generated from the domain description which is written using the domain description language syntax. Domain descriptions can be automatically generated by a system that learns shape descriptions from a drawn example.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondmetinsezginolyaveselovaaaronadlermichaeloltmanschristinealvaradohitchcockrebecca2002MultiDomainSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Sezgin, Metin and  and Adler, Aaron and Oltmans, Michael and Alvarado, Christine and Hitchcock, Rebecca},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the 2nd Annual MIT Student Oxygen Workshop},
  title =          {Multi-Domain Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2002},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

We have created and tested Tahuti, a dual-view sketch recognition environment for class diagrams in UML. The system is based on a multi-layer recognition framework which recognizes multi-stroke objects by their geometrical properties allowing users the freedom to draw naturally as they would on paper rather than requiring the user to draw the objects in a pre-defined manner. Users can draw and edit while viewing either their original strokes or the interpreted version of their strokes engendering user-autonomy in sketching. The experiments showed that users preferred Tahuti to a paint program and to Rational RoseTMbecause it combined the ease of drawing found in a paint program with the ease of editing available in a UML editor.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondrandalldavis2002TahutiAGeometricalSketchRecognitionSystemforUMLClassDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {Technical Report SS-02-08: Papers from the 2002 Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) Spring Symposium on Sketch Understanding},
  title =          {Tahuti: A Geometrical Sketch Recognition System for UML Class Diagrams},
  pages =          {8 pages},
  year =           {2002},
  month =          {July 28-August 1,},
  publisher =      {AAAI},
  address =        {Menlo Park, California, USA},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondkrzysztofgajosrandalldavis2002SketchRecognitioninSoftwareDesignConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Gajos, Krzysztof and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {MIT Lab Abstract. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory},
  title =          {Sketch Recognition in Software Design},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2002},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

Traditionally, biological determinism served as a priori explanation for inadequate performance occurring in minority groups. Concurrent with this thinking, women were deemed to be naturally deficient in math and hence their large-scale absence from math-related disciplines. Lacking empirical support for nature-based arguments, current research relies on social determinism to test gender- based disparities in the pursuit of math. Although this latter model seems closer to reality, as evidenced by research results, this paper suggests that future studies must examine the issue from a choice-based paradigm. With work roles no longer based on gender, questions regarding women in math disciplines must be examined within choice-based models rather than those that emphasize environmentally determined criteria. We propose an integrated research model that includes choice as a critical causal variable.

@inproceedings{tracyhammondjanhammond2002GenderBasedUnderrepresentationinComputerScienceandRelatedDisciplinesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and },
  booktitle =      {Frontiers in Education. FIE 2002. 32nd Annual},
  title =          {Gender-Based Underrepresentation in Computer Science and Related Disciplines},
  volume =         {2},
  pages =          {6 pages},
  year =           {2002},
  publisher =      {IEEE},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
  note =           {ISBN: 0-7803-7444-4},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammondkalanioshirorandalldavis2002NaturalEditingandRecognitionofUMLClassDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy and Oshiro, Kalani and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {MIT Lab Abstract. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory},
  title =          {Natural Editing and Recognition of UML Class Diagrams},
  pages =          {2 pages},
  year =           {2002},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

@inproceedings{tracyhammond2001NaturalSketchRecognitioninUMLClassDiagramsConferencePapers,
  author =         {Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {Proceedings of the MIT Student Oxygen Workshop},
  title =          {Natural Sketch Recognition in UML Class Diagrams},
  pages =          {3 pages},
  year =           {2001},
  month =          {July 16,},
  publisher =      {MIT Aritifial Intelligence Laboratory},
  address =        {Gloucester, Massachusetts., USA},
}

@inproceedings{raghavanparthasarthytracyhammond2001TechnicalInnovationOptionsforDevelopingCountriesConferencePapers,
  author =         {Parthasarthy, Raghavan and Hammond, Tracy},
  booktitle =      {The Hindu},
  title =          {Technical Innovation: Options for Developing Countries},
  pages =          {3 pages},
  year =           {2001},
  month =          {May 24,},
  publisher =      {The Hindu},
  address =        {India},
  note =           {\url{http://www.thehindu.com/2001/05/24/stories/0624000h.htm}},
}

@inproceedings{christinealvaradometinsezgindanascotttracyhammondzardoshtkasheffmichaeloltmansrandalldavis2001AFrameworkforMultiDomainSketchRecognitionConferencePapers,
  author =         {Alvarado, Christine and Sezgin, Metin and Scott, Dana and Hammond, Tracy and Kasheff, Zardosht and Oltmans, Michael and Davis, Randall},
  booktitle =      {MIT Lab Abstract. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory},
  title =          {A Framework for Multi-Domain Sketch Recognition},
  pages =          {3 pages},
  year =           {2001},
  month =          {September},
  publisher =      {MIT},
  address =        {Cambridge, MA, USA},
}

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