Natural user interfaces

Recent developments in user-input technologies are changing the way we interact with digital screens. The mouse and the keyboard are being replaced by touch and motion based interfaces, increasingly known as Natural User Interfaces (NUI). YDreams has developed Yvision, a platform that enables the development of natural user interfaces. YVision has a modular architecture matching YDreams technologies with the best of open source third party libraries. Our technologies emphasize the creation of smart interfaces using autonomous agents that go beyond the traditional reactive systems. Yvision also includes computer vision algorithms for motion detection and the application of 3D depth sensing in rendering engines. NUI applications involve: data acquisition using various sensors that detect the user's motion and gestures; interpretation of sensor data; and presentation, the end visualization layer. YVision includes augmented reality capabilities as a visualization component, where images are captured from the real world and enhanced in real-time with contextual information. Natural user interface applications, developed for both 2D and 3D depth sensing, will be presented for illustrative purposes. Applications include projects developed for clients such as Orange, Coca-Cola, Santander and Nike. Ongoing research projects focusing on digital signage and serious games will be also discussed. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2011.