DARPA CPOF SI Support Information
Co-PIs:
Ken Forbus
Brian M. Dennis
Multi-Dimensional Presentation
Multi-dimensional presentation will play a central role in improving decisions regarding COAs in the CPOF. A multiplicity of interactive devices in the CPOF increases the richness of interactive tasks. This same diversity presents a challenge for the actual presentation of COA plans by providing new axes along which we can vary the quality of a presentation. Presuming the existence of COAs generated by an analogical processing system, we will automatically generate intelligent presentations of that COA based upon the CPOF context that the presentation will appear in.
Our vision of the CPOF contains a handful of new, advanced technologies that radically change the concept of presenting information to end-users:
- Wireless networking with enough bandwidth and reliability that allows for the mobility of handheld computing devices that can be continuously connected to a local area network.
- Handheld interactive devices with processing power rivaling one generation of desktop equipment past. In particular, such devices are fast becoming capable of useful levels of 3D animation, video processing, and audio generation. For example, we expect that easily portable tablet computers will be able to support low-grade digitized video in the near future. Over the course of this project, we expect to see support for effective use of streaming media on these devices.
- The advent of color output on handheld devices and the existence of high resolution color displays on tablet computers adds another axis to vary on.
- The ability in a networked environment to coordinate a number of devices to provide a presentation of information. For example, it may be useful to display a text portion of a COA to a user in his handheld PDA while at the same time displaying graphical map information on a shared wall size display.
- Audio reports via text to speech, with follow-up questions posed by automatic speech recognition, is becoming feasible on tablets and PDAs.
- Accurate position identification of staff members and interactive devices within a CPOF.
The deliverables in this area consist of a design document regarding a style sheet language for multi-dimensional presentation, a user's manual for the language, an implementation of multi-dimensional presentation within the Nemesis framework, and demonstration applications that take advantage of this mechanism
