Browsing by Author "Rodrigues, Pedro"
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- Game design and the gamification of content : assessing a project for learning sign languagePublication . Bidarra, José; Escudeiro, Paula; Escudeiro, Nuno; Reis, Rosa; Baltazar, Ana Bela; Rodrigues, Pedro; Lopes, Jorge; Norberto, Marcelo; Barbosa, MacielThis paper discusses the concepts of game design and gamification of content, based on the development of a serious game aimed at making the process of learning sign language enjoyable and interactive. In this game the player controls a character that interacts with various objects and non- player characters, with the aim of collecting several gestures from the Portuguese Sign Language corpus. The learning model used pushes forward the concept of gamification as a learning process valued by students and teachers alike, and illustrates how it may be used as a personalized device for amplifying learning. Our goal is to provide a new methodology to involve students and general public in learning specific subjects using a ludic, participatory and interactive approach supported by ICT- based tools. Thus, in this paper we argue that perhaps some education processes could be improved by adding the gaming factor through technologies that are able to involve students in a way that is more physical (e.g. using Kinect and sensor gloves), so learning becomes more intense and memorable.
- A kinect game in the VirtualSign project: training and learning with gesturesPublication . Escudeiro, Paula; Escudeiro, Nuno; Reis, Rosa; Baltazar, Ana Bela; Rodrigues, Pedro; Lopes, Jorge; Norberto, Marcelo; Barbosa, Maciel; Bidarra, JoséThis paper presents the development of a game aimed at making the process of learning sign language enjoyable and interactive, using the VirtualSign Translator. In this game the player controls a character that interacts with various objects and non-player characters with the aim of collecting several gestures from the Portuguese Sign Language. Through the connection with VirtualSign Translator the data gloves and Kinect support this interaction and the character can then represent the gestures. This allows for the user to visualize and learn or train the various existing configurations of gestures. To improve the interactivity and to make the game more interesting and motivating, several checkpoints were placed along game levels. This provides the players with a chance to test the knowledge they have acquired so far on the checkpoints, after performing the signs using Kinect. A High Scores system was also created, as well as a History option, to ensure that the game is a continuous and motivating learning process.
- Real time bidirectional translator of Portuguese sign languagePublication . Escudeiro, Paula; Escudeiro, Nuno; Reis, Rosa; Rodrigues, Pedro; Lopes, Jorge; Norberto, Marcelo; Baltasar, Ana Bela; Barbosa, Maciel; Bidarra, JoséThe communication with deaf by means of written text is not as efficient as it might seem at first. In fact, there is a very deep gap between sign language and spoken/written language. The vocabulary, the sentence construction and the grammatical rules are quite different among these two worlds. These facts bring significant difficulties in reading and understanding the meaning of text for deaf people and, on the other hand, make it quite difficult for people with no hearing disabilities to understand sign language. The deployment of tools to assist the daily communication, in schools, in public services, in museums and other, between deaf people and the rest may be a significant contribution to the social inclusion of the deaf community. The work described in this paper addresses the development of a bidirectional translator between Portuguese Sign Language and Portuguese text and a serious game to promote the learning of the Portuguese Sign Language. The translator from sign language to text resorts to two devices, namely the Microsoft Kinect and 5DT Sensor Gloves in order to gather data about the motion and shape of the hands. The hands configurations are classified using Support Vector Machines. The classification of the movement and orientation of the hands is achieved through the use of Dynamic Time Warping algorithm. The translator exhibits a precision higher than 90%. In the other direction, the translation of Portuguese text to Portuguese Sign Language is supported by a 3D avatar which interprets the entered text and performs the corresponding animations. As a complement, we also present a serious game directed to assist in the difficult task of learning the Portuguese Sign Language.
- Serious game for sign languagePublication . Escudeiro, Paula; Escudeiro, Nuno; Reis, Rosa; Barbosa, Maciel; Bidarra, José; Baltasar, Ana Bela; Rodrigues, Pedro; Lopes, Jorge; Norberto, Marcelo; Vaz de CarvalhoThe work presented in this paper consists in the development of a game to make the process of learning sign language enjoyable and interactive. In order to do this, a game was created in which the player controls a character and interacts with various objects and non-player characters with the aim of collecting several gestures from the Portuguese Sign Language. These gestures can then be represented by the character. This allows the user to visualize and learn or train the various existing gestures. To raise the interactivity and to make the game more interesting and motivating, several checkpoints were placed along the level. This will provide the players a chance to test the knowledge they have acquired so far on the checkpoints by using Kinect. A High Scores system was also created as well as a history to ensure that the game is a continuous motivating process as well as a learning process.
- Serious game on sign languagePublication . Escudeiro, Paula; Escudeiro, Nuno; Reis, Rosa; Barbosa, Maciel; Bidarra, José; Baltazar, Ana Bela; Rodrigues, Pedro; Lopes, Jorge; Norberto, MarceloThe quantity of educational digital content available for the hearing impaired community is very scarce. However, due to extraordinary progress of the new technologies, remarkable opportunities to bring a better quality of life to the public in general arose. Making these opportunities available to those who endure handicap and disabilities is a core concern in today's society and a must to promote equity and inclusion. The target community addressed by our work, the hearing impaired community, has its own language, known as Sign language. The work presented in this paper consists in the development of a game to make the process of learning sign language enjoyable and interactive. In order to do this, a game was created in which the player controls a character and interacts with various objects and non-player characters with the aim of collecting several gestures from the Portuguese Sign Language. These gestures can then be represented by the character. This allows the user to visualize and learn or train the various existing gestures. To raise the interactivity and to make the game more interesting and motivating, several checkpoints were placed along the level. This will provide the players a chance to test the knowledge they have acquired so far on the checkpoints by using Kinect. A High Scores system was also created as well as a history to ensure that the game is a continuous motivating process as well as a learning process.
- Three-dimensional segmentation and reconstruction of the retinal vasculature from spectral-domain optical coherence tomographyPublication . Guimarães, Pedro; Rodrigues, Pedro; Celorico, Dirce; Serranho, Pedro; Bernardes, RuiIn this work we reconstruct the 3-D shape and location of the retinal vascular network from commercial spectral-domain (SD) optical coherence tomography (OCT) data. The 2-D location of retinal vascular network on the eye fundus is obtained through SVM classification of properly defined fundus images from OCT data,1 taking advantage of the fact that on standard SD-OCT the incident light beam is absorbed by haemoglobin, therefore creating a shadow cast on OCT signal below each perfused vessel. The depth-wise location of the vessel is obtained as the beginning of the shadow. The classification of crossovers and bifurcations within the vascular network is also addressed. We illustrate the feasibility of the method in terms of vessel calibre estimation and the accuracy of bifurcations and crossovers classification.
- Two-dimensional segmentation of the retinal vascular network from optical coherence tomographyPublication . Rodrigues, Pedro; Guimarães, Pedro; Santos, Torcato; Simão, Sílvia; Miranda, Telmo; Serranho, Pedro; Bernardes, RuiThe automatic segmentation of the retinal vascular network from ocular fundus images has been performed by several research groups. Although different approaches have been proposed for traditional imaging modalities, only a few have addressed this problem for optical coherence tomography (OCT). Furthermore, these approaches were focused on the optic nerve head region. Compared to color fundus photography and fluorescein angiography, two-dimensional ocular fundus reference images computed from three-dimensional OCT data present additional problems related to system lateral resolution, image contrast, and noise. Specifically, the combination of system lateral resolution and vessel diameter in the macular region renders the process particularly complex, which might partly explain the focus on the optic disc region. In this report, we describe a set of features computed from standard OCT data of the human macula that are used by a supervised-learning process (support vector machines) to automatically segment the vascular network. For a set of macular OCT scans of healthy subjects and diabetic patients, the proposed method achieves 98% accuracy, 99% specificity, and 83% sensitivity. This method was also tested on OCT data of the optic nerve head region achieving similar results.
- Using games to make the process of learning sign language enjoyable and interactivePublication . Escudeiro, Paula; Escudeiro, Nuno; Reis, Rosa; Baltazar, Ana Bela; Rodrigues, Pedro; Lopes, Jorge; Norberto, Marcelo; Bidarra, JoséThe work presented in this paper consists in the development of a game to make the process of learning sign language enjoyable and interactive. In this game the player controls a character that interacts with various objects and non-player characters with the aim of collecting several gestures from the Portuguese Sign Language. This interaction is supported by data gloves and Kinect. These gestures can then be represented by the character. This allows the user to visualize and learn or train the various existing gestures. To improve the interactivity and to make the game more interesting and motivating, several checkpoints were placed along game levels. This will provide the players a chance to test the knowledge they have acquired so far on the checkpoints by performing the signs using Kinect. A High Scores system was also created as well as a history to ensure that the game is a continuous motivating process as well as a learning process.