Abstract
Despite the known health benefits of regular participation in physical activity people still refuse this practise. Nowadays, Virtual Reality (VR) is a very powerful and compelling computer tool by which humans can interface and interact with computer-generated environments. In this paper, we propose a virtual training system which can be customized for the physical activity level of the user. System provides real time visual action guide and a performance’s feedback of users through a Natural User Interface (NUI). We conduct a brief pilot study to evaluate our virtual trainers in which participants’ performance doing physical activities is evaluated via our NUI. Initial results indicate that virtual training through a NUI is motivating and entertaining for any kind of user, in particular for individuals with low level of physical activity.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Sherman, W., Craig, A.: Understanding Virtual Reality: Interface, Application, and Design. Elsevier, San Francisco (2002)
Blascovich, J., Bailenson, J.: Infinite Reality: Avatars, Eternal Life, New Worlds, and the Dawn of the Virtual Revolution. William Morrow & Co., New York (2011)
Mancini, M., Pelachaud, C.: Generating distinctive behavior for embodied conversational agents. J. Multimodal User Interfaces 3(4), 249–261 (2009)
Cassell, J., Bickmore, T., Campbell, L., Vilhjálmsson, H., Yan, H.: Human conversation as a system framework: designing embodied conversational agents. In: Embodied conversational agents, pp. 29–63. MIT Press, Cambridge (2000)
Mancini, M.: Multimodal Distinctive Behavior for Expressive Embodied Conversational Agents. Universal Publishers (2008)
Chen, Q., Torroni, P., Villata, S., Hsu, J., Omicini, A. (eds.): PRIMA 2015. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 9387. Springer, Cham (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25524-8
Jofré, N., Rodriguez, G., Alvarado, Y., Fernández, J., Guerrero, R.: Virtual humans conversational character for a cave-like environment. In: XX Congreso Argentino de Ciencias de la Computación, vol. 20, pp. 937–946 (2014)
Pérez, J., Cerezo, E., Serón, F.: E-VOX: a socially enhanced semantic ECA. In: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Social Learning and Multimodal Interaction for Designing Artificial Agents, DAA 2016, New York, pp. 2:1–2:6. ACM (2016)
Kopp, S., Wachsmuth, I.: Model-based animation of co-verbal gesture. In: Proceedings of Computer Animation, pp. 252–257. IEEE (2002)
Burdea, G., Coiffet, P.: Virtual reality technology. Int. J. e-Collab. 2(1), 61–64 (2006)
Blake, J.: Nat. User Interfaces in.NET. Manning Pubs Co Series. Manning Publications Company, Greenwich (2012)
Koenemann, J., Burget, F., Bennewitz, M.: Real-time imitation of human whole-body motions by humanoids. In: 2014 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), pp. 2806–2812, May 2014
Sheff, D.: Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered the World. Vintage, New York (2011)
Andrews, J., Baker, N.: Xbox 360 system architecture. IEEE Micro 26(2), 25–37 (2006)
Miller, K., Adair, B., Pearce, A., Said, C., Ozanne, E., Morris, M.: Effectiveness and feasibility of virtual reality and gaming system use at home by older adults for enabling physical activity to improve health-related domains: a systematic review. Age Ageing 43(2), 188–195 (2013)
Mellecker, R., McManus, A.: Active video games and physical activity recommendations: a comparison of the gamercize stepper, XBOX Kinect and XaviX J-Mat. J. Sci. Med. Sport 17(3), 288–292 (2014)
Nathan, D., Huynh, D., Rubenson, J., Rosenberg, M.: Estimating physical activity energy expenditure with the kinect sensor in an exergaming environment. PLoS ONE 10(5), e0127113 (2015)
Campos, C., del Castillo, H.: The benefits of active video games for educational and physical activity approaches: a systematic review. J. New Approaches Educ. Res. 5(2), 115 (2016)
Jofré, N., Rodríguez, G., Alvarado, Y., Fernández, J., Guerrero, R.: El uso de la realidad virtual inmersiva en terapias motricess. In: XIX Workshop de Investigadores en Ciencias de la Computación (2017)
Li, B., Maxwell, M., Leightley, D., Lindsay, A., Johnson, W., Ruck, A.: Development of exergame-based virtual trainer for physical therapy using kinect. In: Schouten, B., Fedtke, S., Schijven, M., Vosmeer, M., Gekker, A. (eds.) Games for Health 2014, pp. 79–88. Springer, Wiesbaden (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-07141-7_11
Pedraza-Hueso, M., Martín-Calzón, S., Díaz-Pernas, F., Martínez-Zarzuela, M.: Rehabilitation using kinect-based games and virtual reality. Procedia Comput. Sci. 75, 161–168 (2015)
Shaw, L., Tourrel, R., Wunsche, B., Lutteroth, C., Marks, S., Buckley, J.: Design of a virtual trainer for exergaming. In: Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, p. 63. ACM (2016)
Chi, E., Borriello, G., Hunt, G., Davies, N.: Guest editors’ introduction: pervasive computing in sports technologies. IEEE Pervasive Comput. 4(3), 22–25 (2005)
Cózar-Gutiérrez, R., Sáez-López, J.: Game-based learning and gamification in initial teacher training in the social sciences: an experiment with MinecraftEdu. Int. J. Educ. Technol. High. Educ. 13(1), 2 (2016)
Tan, P., Ling, S., Ting, C.: Adaptive digital game-based learning framework. In: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts, pp. 142–146. ACM (2007)
Derryberry, A.: Serious games: online games for learning (2013)
Simons, P., Ruijters, M.: Varieties of work related learning. Int. J. Educ. Res. 47(4), 241–251 (2008)
Zhang, Z.: Microsoft kinect sensor and its effect. IEEE Multimed. 19(2), 4–10 (2012)
Alvarado, Y., Moyano, N., Quiroga, D., Fernández, J., Guerrero, R.: A virtual reality computing platform for real time 3D visualization. In: Augmented Virtual Realities for Social Developments. Experiences Between Europe and Latin America, pp. 214–231. Universidad de Belgrano (2014)
Alvarado, Y., Claudia, G., Gil Costa, V., Guerrero, R.: ARENA simulation model of a conversational character’s speech system. In: Computer Science & Technology Series XXII Argentine Congress of Computer Science-Selected Papers, pp. 119–129. Universidad de La Plata (2017)
Serón, F., Bobed, C., Latorre, P.: The Vox system. In: Augmented Virtual Realities for Social Developments. Experiences Between Europe and Latin America, pp. 130–159. Universidad de Belgrano (2014)
World Health Organization: Recomendaciones mundiales sobre actividad física para la salud (2010)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Jofré, N., Rodríguez, G., Alvarado, Y., Fernández, J., Guerrero, R. (2018). Natural User Interfaces: A Physical Activity Trainer. In: De Giusti, A. (eds) Computer Science – CACIC 2017. CACIC 2017. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 790. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75214-3_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75214-3_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75213-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75214-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)