As defined in the FY 1997 Blue Book:
"HuCS R&D makes computing systems and communications
networks more easily accessible to and useable by a wide range of user
communities. These communities include scientists and engineers,
educators and students, the workforce, and the general public.
Technologies enabling such systems include: (1) "knowledge
repositories" and "information agents" for managing,
analyzing, and presenting massive amounts of multimedia and multi-source
information; (2) "collaboratories" that provide access to
knowledge repositories and that facilitate knowledge sharing, group
authorship, and control of remote instruments; (3) systems that enable
multi-modal human system interactions including speech, touch, and
gesture recognition and synthesis; and (4) virtual reality environments
and their application to fields including scientific research, health
care, manufacturing, and training."
"Knowledge repositories" are huge electronic databases that are being created for access by users ranging in size from small groups to the general public. The content is multimedia (text, voice, images, and video), and the data reside on distributed heterogeneous computing systems that use different database management software. There is a critical need for tools to manage these databases, as well as for "information agents" to analyze the data and present the results of this analysis most effectively. Analysis technologies include document translation and understanding. Technologies required for presenting these data and analyses include visualization, audio, and touch, and need to be selected by a user based on personal preference or need. Technologies that allow the user to interact with the information include virtual environments and telerobotics.
Collaboratories, which permit geographically distant people to work together and to use remote resources as if there were no geographical separation, build upon knowledge repositories and information agents. Collaboratories also require new technologies for creating multimedia information (for example, middleware for group authorship) and for controlling remote instruments that will enable researchers to access scarce and expensive research resources from their desktops.
Although today's graphical user interfaces are designed for a well-trained and unimpaired individual seated in front of a desktop monitor and keyboard, tomorrow's diverse user population requires user-friendly interfaces that are not only easy for the novice or infrequent user to use--regardless of physical ability, education, and culture--but remain powerful and productive for the expert. Enhanced Braille interfaces are needed by people who cannot see, and eye-tracking technologies can be employed by people who cannot type. To this end, HuCS technologies will enable speech recognition and synthesis, as well as recognition by facial expression, touch, and gesture. Human-centered application development environments will allow users to tailor services and applications to meet individual needs. Other areas of HuCS research include interfaces to support computing systems embedded in household appliances and in wireless hand-held and wrist-mounted devices.
Virtual environments are a requirement for innovative knowledge presentation and collaboratories. They are interactive, computer-generated multi-dimensional models of real or artificial worlds designed so that the user's view of the environment changes in real time in response to user control. This control of viewpoint induces kinesthetic depth perception in which a user can perceive and interactively change a virtual world through direct manipulation of virtual objects in the environment. Intelligent real-time response and multi-dimensional sensory information can facilitate explorations involving complex tasks in science, medicine, and manufacturing. High-quality sensory information--that derived from sight, sound, and touch--is generated by computing systems and delivered to users by special interface devices. These devices provide the sensation that a user is interacting with an environment just as that person would interact with the real world, and in addition employ "intelligence amplification" to expand decision-making capabilities.
Virtual laboratories are virtual environments that facilitate scientific research by enabling interactive exploration in a three-dimensional environment of large, complex sets of multi-dimensional data. These data may be produced by modeling or simulation (for example, computational fluid dynamics used to model the flow of air or water), or may be empirical data (for example, from on-line experiments feeding observations to the researcher in real time), or both. This interactive exploration capability will enhance significantly the ability of the researcher to observe and understand scientific phenomena.
Virtual environments promise to foster faster and more effective learning. By tailoring virtual worlds to specific educational or training tasks (for example flight simulators), people can be trained to use complex and costly equipment without acquiring that equipment or putting equipment and trainee at risk. Virtual laboratory infrastructures can be easily adapted to educational purposes.
HuCS R&D in the area of virtual environments will include immersion in simulated environments, advanced modeling and simulation technologies, and group collaborations in virtual spaces. Expert systems that aid in the design of virtual environments are also required, so that complex environments appropriate to a specialized task can be automatically constructed. High quality visual displays, and possibly high-quality force and touch displays are required. Augmented-reality-based systems will require very accurate tracking and methods to closely align the virtual environment with the real world. Highly portable, wearable, virtual environment systems must be developed to support product maintenance in the field.
Used in knowledge presentations, collaboratories, and virtual environments, visualization systems and tools for multimodal presentations are key HuCS technologies. Advances are needed in feature classification, comparative visualization for trend analysis, merging of multisource data for visualization, combining data from multiple disciplines for visualization, integrated visualization of both source data and analysis products, and visualization for the blind.
Telemedicine consultation and treatment allows the patient and health care practitioners to be in different locations while the patient is examined, diagnosed, and one day treated remotely. In such activities, images and data from diverse medical instruments (for example, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, X-ray, and sonograms) will be integrated and displayed in a three-dimensional environment. In the longer term, remotely operated surgical robots may be used to perform operations, including unusual, difficult, or time-critical operations such as on a battlefield. Such technologies require substantial improvements over current HuCS technologies, including data management, accurate registration of remote instruments, and very accurate visual, touch, and force displays and tracking systems.
Other application areas include battlefield management and planning, emergency management, multi-government interactions, and industrial competition and collaboration. In each of these areas, human centered systems can provide an information-rich overview of highly complex situations involving many participants. HuCS technologies can be used to simulate these applications for training and evaluation purposes and to use real-time input to monitor actual situations for situation awareness and decision making. These applications also require special authoring tools for creating and maintaining simulations and the ability to partition a simulation into hierarchical levels of detail. In product manufacturing, for example, these technologies can support the total life cycle of a manufactured product, resulting in improved design, development, testing, manufacture, training and use, and maintenance and repair.
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