The advancements in the field of VR allow designers to use VR as a technology for sketching ideas in a virtual space. In this paper, Gravity Sketch (a VR sketching software) is used as an ideation sketching tool in the process of product styling. The goal of this research is to examine the advantages and points-of-pain when using virtual reality tools in the process of product styling. 29 Master students used the VR sketching tool in their design process and all of them had feedback and insights on the tool.

To remove humans from hazardous environments “good” teleoperated robotic systems are needed. “Good” is defined here to mean a system which is task centred and which is transparent to the user-in other words, a system you can see through. A teleoperated robotic system which strives towards this goal is described by way of illustration. The fundamentals that have helped to achieve this are: design and build from a task centred viewpoint, careful design of the Human Computer Interface(HCI) and special consideration for the systems integration task.

The Multimodal User Supervised Interface and Intelligent Control (MUSIIC) project focuses on a multimodal human-machine interface which addresses user need to manipulate familiar objects in an unstructured environment. The control of a robot by individuals with significant physical limitations presents a challenging problem of telemanipulation. This is addressed by a unique user-interface integrating the user's command (speech) and gestures (pointing) with autonomous planning techniques (knowledge-bases and 3-D vision). The resultant test-bed offers the opportunity to study telemanipulation by individuals with physical disabilities, and can be generalized to an effective technique for other, including remote and time-delayed, telemanipulation. This paper focuses on the knowledge-driven planning mechanism that is central to the MUSIIC system.

Syntax-directed development is a software development method in which, the syntax of the input of the application plays a central role. The syntax description forms a frame on which semantic actions, attributes, local and global information can be attached. Much research has been done to develop theories and algorithms needed for robots to process information and interact with the environment. This paper describes how LL(1) descriptions can be used to produce automatically motion control software, object recognizers and human-computer interfaces.