Julia Chatain

I am a Senior Scientist at the Singapore-ETH Centre, building the Future Embodied Learning Technologies (FELT) programme, and I am interested in math education, HCI, XR, AI, and embodiment.

syMAPse

Jan 2016 drawing on a paper map using Spatial Augmented Reality

This project involved the French Research Center Inria Bordeaux Sud-Ouest, the Science Center Cap Sciences, and the Swiss University École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

In a Smart City context, this project explores how we can use spatial augmented reality to help citizens express themselves about a city. Smart City approaches often focus on quantitative inputs from sensors and citizens. Here, we draw inspiration from subjective maps like this one drawn by children of the city of Rennes (France). Reading through the map gives information about the city that, we argue, cannot be expressed with quantitative measurements.

map of the city drawn by children

In this project, I explored how paper-based spatial augmented reality maps can be used to support subjective expression. Our system, based on PapARt, included a projector to display the map, a camera to track the paper, and a kinect to track the hands of the users. Using our system, the user can pan and zoom to select a place on the map, and then draw or write on the paper what they wish to express about this location. Their drawing is captured and displayed on the map for others to read and look at.

intermediate prototype for syMAPse

As part of this project, we compared different modalities to interact with the map, including touch, tangible items, and spatial movements.

comparison of modalities

Finally, we proposed a final prototype based on our different studies.

final prototype for syMAPse

Team

Publications

Chatain, Julia, Anke Brock, and Martin Hachet. "SyMAPse: Design and Evaluation of an Augmented Reality Map." (2016). (link) (pdf)

Chatain, Julia, Marie Demangeat, Anke M. Brock, Didier Laval, and Martin Hachet. "Exploring input modalities for interacting with augmented paper maps." In Proceedings of the 27th Conference on l'Interaction Homme-Machine, pp. 1-6. (2015). (link) (pdf)

Chatain, Julia. "SyMAPse: Augmented Interactive Maps for Subjective Expression." (2015). (link) (pdf)

Reality Tech - Papart. (link)