First Insights into INTUIT: An INteractive Tactile Physicalization for User Interpretation of RADAR Technology

• Published in: IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
• Main Authors: Djavaherpour, Hessam, Moorman, Lynn, Samavati, Faramarz, Jansen, Yvonne
• Other Authors: Popular interaction with 3d content (Potioc), Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique (LaBRI), Université de Bordeaux (UB)-École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, Informatique et Radiocommunications de Bordeaux (ENSEIRB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Bordeaux (UB)-École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, Informatique et Radiocommunications de Bordeaux (ENSEIRB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Inria Bordeaux - Sud-Ouest, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria), Mount Royal University (MRU), University of Calgary, Université de Bordeaux (UB)-École Nationale Supérieure d'Électronique, Informatique et Radiocommunications de Bordeaux (ENSEIRB)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), This research is partially funded by the MOPGA program, implemented by Campus France, and funded by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs in collaboration with the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: [INFO.INFO-HC]Computer Science [cs]/Human-Computer Interaction [cs.HC]; Arctic; Baffin Island; Baffin; inuit; Nunavut; Sea ice
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04181117; https://hal.science/hal-04181117/document; https://hal.science/hal-04181117/file/INTUIT_WIP_for_IEEE_CG_A_Final.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2023.3286228

International audience The changing climate and increasingly unpredictable sea ice conditions have created life-threatening risks for Inuit, the residents of the Arctic, who depend on the ice for transportation and livelihood. In response, they are turning to technology (e.g., RADAR imagery from the Canadian RADARSAT satellite) to augment their traditional knowledge of the ice and to map potential hazards. The difficulty lies in the actual RADAR interpretation process. In order to support understanding of the RADAR image content, we introduce a work-in-progress, INTUIT, a physicalization that represents the RADAR reflection strength, which is highly influenced by surface roughness, as a tactile texture. Such tactile texture is made by resampling the RADAR imagery to a number of UV cells and mapping the average brightness value of each cell to a physical variable. A proof of concept was designed for a region in Baffin Island (Nunavut) and sent to the Arctic for initial feedback. Preliminary study results are promising: it is expected that INTUIT will facilitate the interpretation learning process for RADAR imagery.