Flood risk communication in disaster-prone communities often relies on traditional tools (e.g., paper and browser-based hazard/flood maps) that struggle to engage community stakeholders and reflect intuitive flood situations. In this paper, we applied the transitional mixed reality (MR) interface concept from pioneering work and extended it for flood risk communication scenarios through co-design with community stakeholders to help vulnerable residents understand flood risk and facilitate preparedness. Starting with an initial transitional MR prototype, we conducted three iterative workshops - each dedicated to device usability, visualization techniques, and interaction methods. We collaborated with diverse community stakeholders in flood-prone areas, collecting feedback to refine the system according to community needs. Our preliminary evaluation indicates that this co-designed system significantly improves user understanding and engagement compared to traditional tools, though some older residents faced usability challenges. We detailed this iterative co-design process, critical insights and design implications, offering our work as a practical case of mixed reality application in strengthening flood risk communication. We also discuss the system's potential to support community-driven collaboration in flood preparedness.

The research on face image generation has gained widespread attention in the field of image generation. However, large datasets are required to train a generative model to produce images of high quality and resolution. It is especially difficult to collect multiple face images of a specific group. It may also be difficult to establish an efficient model by training with a small dataset.This paper presents a novel method for the generation of face images with the features of a specific group. The face images of a dataset are embedded into a latent space as sets of latent variables by Image2StyleGAN and are expressed as a distribution of the sets of latent variables in the latent space of a pre-trained StyleGAN2. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is used to extract the features of the distribution. The generation of images for different groups does not require re-training of the model, as a pre-trained model is used instead. Furthermore, the proposed method can generate high-quality images with the features of the group from a dataset with only about 100 face images. However, the quality and the variety of the generated images can vary depending on a Cumulative Contribution Rate (CCR) of the PCA. Therefore, this study also proposes a metric called the Fréchet Inception Distance in Principal Component Space (FID-PCS), which can evaluate the generated images even with a small dataset. The FID-PCS can be used to determine the CCR that generates images with a good balance between the quality and the variety. The face images of three groups were collected as datasets to evaluate the validity of the proposed method, which include male idols, female idols, and male mixed martial artists. It was observed that images with the features of the group are generated by the face distributions extracted by the PCA, and the images with high quality and wide variety are generated by determining the appropriate CCR by the FID-PCS.

This paper introduces a display technique to show gradation animation using a shape-changing artificial grass system. Recently, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and projectors have been used in a natural public facility such as a park. However, these displays sometimes spoil natural scenery because they look like artificial materials. Our proposed method is useful to develop a natural landscape-friendly display. We develop a grass pixel system to display the gradation. The grass pixel consists of yellow and green grass, and the length of the green grass moves vertically. The grass pixel uses a pin-based shape-changing system using a stepper motor to control the grass length dynamically. We evaluated the gradation of the grass pixel through an image processing of HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value of Brightness) values. In the measurement, the pixel system moved the grass length from minimum to maximum, and we took images of the running grass pixel from several angles. As a result, we observed that the HSV values changed linearly with the movement of the length of the green grass. We also developed a 3 × 3 pixels grass display, which can show several gradation animations as demonstrations.

This paper presents a novel workspace for sharing a virtual space among multiple users with tangible interfaces and multiple perspectives. The multiple users can share a virtual space such as a spatial design through first-person perspectives (FPPs) and third-person perspectives (TPPs), and can discuss it while switching between the FPPs and TPPs. The workspace, named the Intermediation Family, is composed of box-shaped movable tangible interfaces, a fixed large display, a simple removable HMD and a computer that makes a virtual space. Since the tangible interface plays as both a user's avatar and a camera object for the FPP in the virtual space, the user can observe the virtual space from the FPP on a display mounted on the tangible interface while moving it. When the user wants a more immersive experience, she/he can also use the HMD. Moreover, the users can observe the entire virtual space through the TPP on the fixed large display. The multiple users can share the spatial design by switching their perspectives and exchanging the tangible interface and the HMD one after another. In this paper, two applications were implemented to hear opinions of some users. One is a virtual walk-through application, the other is a hands-on room layout application.

In this study, we present a method for controlling the surface shape of transparent liquids that generate caustics due to luminance distribution of an arbitrary image. Our method consists of the process of caustics design and the process of liquid surface control. While designing caustics, an arbitrary grayscale image is treated as the input image and the surface shape of transparent liquid that generates caustics is calculated based on the luminance distribution of that input image. We utilize the Poisson's equation to obtain a continuous liquid surface. A driving force based on the current height field and the target height field is introduced as the external force. This force that configures the current liquid surface into the target shape in the previous process is calculated and the change in the water surface and the caustics due to this force is verified using fluid simulation.

When pedestrians and a mobile robot pass each other in a corridor, it is important for a robot to make an appropriate path in order not to confuse pedestrians. This paper presents a new path planning method where the mobile robot follows the rule of “eeping to the right.” Three kinds of maps based on laser range finder data are used in the path planning. One is a global cost map made by a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) technique, that expresses a whole environment and is used to make a path from a start position to a goal. Another is a local cost map, that is used for avoiding obstacles near the mobile robot. The other is an attractive force cost map proposed in this paper, that makes the robot keep to the right along a corridor. When there is no pedestrian, the mobile robot goes to a goal position indicated by an operator based on the global cost map while avoiding moving obstacles based on the local cost map in real time. When the robot detects pedestrians, it begins to keep to the right. This method where the robot follows a social norm depending on each country can make a pedestrian pass by the mobile robot more smoothly. Some experimental results reveal the validity of our proposed path planning method.

We propose a new boundary handling method for smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH). Previous approaches required the use of boundary particles to prevent particles from sticking to the boundary. We address this issue by correcting the fundamental equations of SPH with the integration of a kernel function. Our approach is able to directly handle triangle mesh boundaries without the need for boundary particles. We also show how our approach can be integrated into a position-based fluid framework.

A photomosaic is a type of decorative art made up from various other photographs. We present a method for quickly generating photomosaics and propose an interactive recursive photomosaic system. Users can operate the system by using a large display with a touch input function, which allows them to alter the appearance of the image dynamically.