Creating a virtual reality (VR) by combining visual information and pseudo touch sensing is studied actively. However, being strictly detached from visual information, it is not easy for visually impaired individuals to sense a visual VR world. The purpose of our study is the development of, so we call, haptic VR technologies for aiding visually impaired individuals sense his (her) surroundings and recognize geometric constructions in the space. Our haptic VR system for the cane walk is installed as follows: in the VR world we put (draw) a cane and a hand with its 5 fingers holding the cane. In real word, we wear a data glove on one hand and this hand is superposed on the virtual hand (this is achieved by each finger being force provided through the data-glove). Thus our VR sensing is created by the pseudo haptic sensing at the fingers for which the feedback forces are provided by the data-glove worn on the hand. In our haptic VR space of cane walk, we have prepared "studded paving blocks" to aid the visually impaired for the pavement, a "cane (white cane)" and a "hand" to grasp and manipulate the cane on the virtual pavement. An actual hand wearing the data-glove on it is superposed on the virtual hand by the system. Thus the touch and investigation on the virtual paving blocks by the cane in the haptic VR space is conveyed to the actual hand via the data-glove. We also show some experimental vibration value and haptic value data obtained at the index finger of the cane grasping hand during the real walking on studded paving blocks and some skin surface voltage of electromyogram (EMG) data.

The major theme of this paper is to discuss solution algorithms of the Cutting and Packing Problems, that is, problems to find optimal layout of given parts (items) on given material(object) in order to get maximal usage of the object. Especially in this paper, the authors deal with two-dimensional rectangular packing problems. Here, a new deterministic algorithm for the problems is proposed by extending the solution algorithms of so called polyomino packing problems, which was developed by authors. This algorithm is fully deterministic, and is not depending on the heuristic approaches nor meta-heuristic ones as the conventional algorithms were. In this paper, the superiority of the new algorithm over the conventional ones is verified by testing on benchmark data.

Since switching schemes for removing impulse noise detect the positions of pixels corrupted by impulse noise and selectively only filter out corrupted pixels, the restored image quality can be significantly improved compared with conventional median filters. However, when some impulses cannot be detected with impulse detectors, they remain behind, and may adversely degrade subjective image quality. To solve this problem, we propose a high-performance impulse detector based on anisotropic diffusion that smoothes out the details of images while preserving impulses, so that no impulses are left undetected. The experimental results revealed that the proposed approach could effectively improving objective and subjective image quality, especially when images were seriously corrupted with constant or randomly valued impulses.

The objective of our research is to develop a new method for solving three-dimensional (3D) polyomino packing problems. As a first step, we have devised a game-theoretic solution for two-dimensional (2D) cases, which were treated as rectilinear jigsaw puzzles, i.e., specialized 2D polyomino packing problems such that there is at least one placement solution. In this paper, as the next step, algorithms for the original 2D polyomino packing problem are extended so as to solve 3D polyomino packing problems. The resulting has no precedent in previous work and its biggest feature is efficiently to find a solution path as in the 2D cases. Numerical experiments prove that the algorithm works well with good efficiency.

The construction of information ensured environment for the visually impaired (say, in the college life) combining data carrier and network technologies includes the problem of obtaining and conveying environmental information. As the visually impaired have keen difficulties in sensing changes of surroundings, in order to assist them we usually need an interface (say, a guide dog) between people and the environment. We put RFID tags on surrounding objects so that we can treat them as landmarks of the environment. Then we can design autonomous robots to sense the changes of locations of objects and situations. In this paper we describe a general navigation algorithm of such robots based on distance information obtained, say, by super sonic sensors which are equipped on the robot. Our algorithm is designed on the so-called distance field space model (DFM), which can be considered as a natural description of objects and space on the basis of a fuzzy set theory. Though major part of this paper is devoted to the development of the navigation principle based on DFM, our RFID-sensing robots are not equipped with this algorithm yet.

Data carrier technology such as barcode and RFID greatly improves information ensuring for the visually impaired; using the key kept in the data carrier attached to an equipment or surrounding objects, one can obtain detailed information from a database on the network. The purpose of the project we report here is the construction of such an information ensured environment in the college life. In the first part we present two concrete examples: getting a voice access to announcements on the bulletin board by using barcode, and messaging system between students and teacher by using RFID tags. In the second part, after giving the idea of setting marks in the environment by using RFID tags and tracing their moves, we present an RFID-sensing robot which cruises in the environment and checks changes occurred in it by using the record in RFID tags; by this we can cope with the dynamic changes of the environment for information ensuring for the visually impaired.

Abstract A problem of spanning a surface of C1 continuity (C1‐surface) over a given wireframe is introduced. By exploiting the concept of a super surface patch introduced in an earlier paper, we proved the existence of an approximate, yet practical solution of the problem. That is, we presented a method or a procedure, by which to span a C1‐surface over the wireframe. This technique is intended to be utilized as a flexible surface generation method for the 3D shape design in the industrial world.