Meyer, J. (2006), User Experience: Meet FlashBlock, Session notes from presentation at FlashForward 2006, Seattle.
This page contains links to articles, papers and presentations I've contributed to, written or published. Many of these projects are collaborative efforts. Please cite the full reference given.
Much of this work was done in the NYU Computer Science department, while I was working at the NYU Media Research Laboratory.
| Meyer, J. (2006), User Experience: Meet FlashBlock, Session notes from presentation at FlashForward 2006, Seattle. |
User Experience: Meet FlashBlock looks at the social issues surrounding Flash, in particular Flash adds. I talk about why Flash users are installing Flash blockers, and how this fits in with broader cultural trends - including Debord's Society of the Spectacle and concepts like the Experience Economy.
 | Meyer, J. (2006), Ajax for ActionScripters, Session notes from presentation at FlashForward 2006, Seattle. |
Ajax for ActionScripters maps the current state of the "Ajax" nation. Ajax is an approach to building rich web applications using JavaScript and HTML, as popularized by applications like Google Maps and Gmail. In this session, I look at tools, frameworks, and issues surrounding building Ajax apps. I also show how to code up a basic ActionScript animation using DHTML and JavaScript. You can leverage many of your ActionScript skills to create dynamic JavaScript content.
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Meyer, J., Multiperspective Collages, in Visual Proceedings of Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '95) - Sketches Category, ACM Press, New York, 2005 . |
This sketch presents a series of multiperspective collages I created over the last four years. Two examples of these works can be seen in the SIGGRAPH 2005 Art Gallery. Here, I describe my process and tools, demonstrate a custom image editing system I created for the project, and show some resulting images. I will also briefly outline some of the theoretical underpinnings to the work and mention some of the history of multiperspective imagery.
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C. Bregler, C. Castiglia. J. DeVincenzo, L. Dubois, K. Feeley, T. Igoe, J. Meyer, M. Naimark, A. Postelnicu, M. Rabinovich, S. Rosenthal, K. Salen, J. Sudol, B. Wright (2005), Squidball: An Experiment in Large Scale Motion Capture and Game Design, in Proc. Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment (INTETAIN) 2005, Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. |
This paper describes Squidball, a new large-scale motion capture based game. It was tested on up to 4000 player audiences last summer at SIGGRAPH 2004. It required the construction of the world's largest motion capture space at the time, and many other challenges in technology, production, game play, and study of group behavior. Our aim was to entertain the SIGGRAPH Electronic Theater audience with a cooperative and energetic game that is played by the en- tire audience together, controlling real-time graphics and audio by bouncing and batting multiple large helium-filled balloons across the entire theater space. We detail in this paper the lessons learned.
» Acrobat PDF | Quicktime MPEG | Home Page
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Meyer, J. (2004), The Future of Digital Imaging - High Dynamic Range Photography (HDR), web article, www.cybergrain.com/tech/hdr. |
A look at recent advances in the field of high dynamic range imaging (HDR). I will cover the basic concepts of dynamic range, talk about new HDR technologies, and show how HDR imaging will impact all aspects of digital imaging.
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Bederson, B. B., Grosjean, J., Meyer, J. (2004), Toolkit Design for Interactive Structured Graphics, Transactions on Software Engineering, New York: IEEE. |
In this paper, we analyze toolkit designs for building graphical applications with rich user interfaces, comparing polylithic and monolithic toolkit-based solutions. Polylithic toolkits encourage extension by composition, and follow a design philosophy similar to 3D scene graphs supported by toolkits including Java3D and OpenInventor. Monolithic toolkits, on the other hand, encourage extension by inheritance, and are more akin to 2D Graphical User Interface toolkits such as Swing or MFC. We describe Jazz (a polylithic toolkit) and Piccolo (a monolithic toolkit), each of which we built to support interactive 2D structured graphics applications in general, and Zoomable User Interface applications in particular. We examine the trade-offs of each approach in terms of performance, memory requirements, and programmability. We conclude that a polylithic approach is most suitable for toolkit builders, visual design software where code is automatically generated, and application builders where there is much customization of the toolkit. Correspondingly, we find that monolithic approaches appear to be best for application builders where there is not much customization of the toolkit.
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Bederson, B. B., Meyer, J., & Good, L.,
Jazz: An Extensible Zoomable User Interface Graphics Toolkit in Java,
Proceedings of ACM Symposium on User Interface and Software Technology,
UIST 2000, ACM, New York, pp. 171-180. 2000. |
In this paper we investigate the use of scene graphs as a general approach for implementing two-dimensional (2D) graphical applications, and in particular Zoomable User Interfaces (ZUIs). Scene graphs are typically found in three-dimensional (3D) graphics packages such as Sun's Java3D and SGI's OpenInventor. They have not been widely adopted by 2D graphical user interface toolkits.
To explore the effectiveness of scene graph techniques, we have developed Jazz, a general-purpose 2D scene graph toolkit. Jazz is implemented in Java using Java2D, and runs on all platforms that support Java 2. This paper describes Jazz and the lessons we learned using Jazz for ZUIs. It also discusses how 2D scene graphs can be applied to other application areas.
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Perlin, K., Meyer, J., Nested User Interface Components, Proceedings of ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, UIST '99, ACM, New York. 1999. |
Nested User Interface Components combine the concepts of Zooming User Interfaces (ZUIs) with recursive nesting of active graphical user interface widgets. The resulting system of recursively nesting interface components has a number of desirable properties. The level of detail of the view of any widget component and its children, as well as the responsiveness of that component to the user’s actions, can be tuned to the current visible size of that component on the screen.
We distinguish between the interaction style of a component, and the semantic result that it produces. Only the latter is used to determine the geographic parameters for that component. In this way, very large and layered control problems can be presented to the user as a cohesive and readily navigable visual surface. It becomes straightforward to layout interaction semantics that are best handled by recursion, such as filters composed of nested expressions.
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Bederson, B., Meyer, J.,
Implementing a Zooming User Interface:
Experience Building Pad++ in Journal of Software - Practice
and Experience, Vol 28(10), 1101-1135, August 1998. |
We are investigating a novel user interface paradigm based on zooming, in which users are presented with a zooming view of a huge planar information surface. We have developed a system called Pad++ to explore this approach. The implementation of Pad++ is related to real-time 3D graphics systems and to 2D windowing systems. However, the zooming nature of Pad++ requires new approaches to rendering, screen management, and spatial indexing. In this paper, we describe the design and implementation of the Pad++ engine, focusing in particular on rendering and data structure issues. Our goal is to present useful techniques that can be adopted in other real-time graphical systems, and also to discuss how 2D zooming systems differ from other graphical systems.
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Wardrip-Fruin, N., Meyer, J., Perlin, J., Bederson, B.B., Hollan, J.D. (1997).
A Zooming Sketchpad, A Multiscale Narrative: Gray Matters.
in Visual Proceedings of Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH '97) pp. 141. ACM Press,
New York. 1997. |
Gray Matters is a collaborative, multiscale hypertext artwork/fiction. Using a subset of the PadDraw's Zooming functionality, it creates an environment for multiscale reading and exploration. Fifteen images from Gray’s Anatomy are tinted and arranged in a patchwork body. Each image has two repre-sentations: a scanned and manipulated bitmap, and a simplified vector graphic. The bitmap is seen when the view is zoomed out, and this cross-fades into the the vector graphic as the view moves closer. At the same time, color-coded labels representing texts fade into visibility. As the view zooms in further, the labels dissolve away, and the full texts are displayed against the color fields of the vector graphics.
» Acrobat PDF | Gray Matters Home
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Bederson, B. B., Hollan, J. D., Perlin, K., Meyer, J., Bacon, D., and
Furnas, G. W. Pad++: A Zoomable Graphical Sketchpad for
Exploring Alternate Interface Physics in
Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 7, 3-31. 1996. |
We describe Pad++, a zoomable graphical sketchpad that we are exploring as an alternative to traditional window and icon-based interfaces. We discuss the motivation for Pad++, describe the implementation, and present prototype applications. In addition, we introduce an informational physics strategy for interface design and briefly contrast it with current design strategies. We envision a rich world of dynamic persistent informational entities that operate according to multiple physics specifically designed to provide cognitively facile access and serve as the basis for design of new computationally-based work materials.
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Meyer, J., Bederson, B. B.,
Does A Sketchy Appearance Influence Drawing Behavior?
Tech Report HCIL-98-12, CS-TR-3965, UMIACS-TR-98-74, Computer Science
Department, University of Maryland, College Park, MD. 1998. |
In this paper we examine the role of visual aesthetics in how people interact with computers. Specifically, we are interested in whether simply adopting a sketch-like visual appearance in a drawing application encourages users to interact with the application more freely or rapidly than they would if they were using the standard, precise, rectilinear appearance that most drawing applications now supply.
We carried out two user studies. In the first study, we asked members of the University of Maryland Art History department to draw a series of diagrams using two different line styles. In the second experiment, we used the World Wide Web to collect drawing diagrams from a much broader set of participants. Both studies reveal that subjects draw more quickly using the sketch-like (‘wavy’) line style than the straight line style.
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Meyer, J., Creating Informal Looking Interfaces,
Unpublished TechNote, www.cybergrain.com/tech/etchapad/lines.html, 1997. |
This technote outlines several approaches for generating 2D graphical user interface widgets which have a rough, sketch-like quality, and introduces an algorithm for drawing widgets using fun 'wiggly' lines that have a pleasing, informal look.
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Meyer, J., EtchaPad - Disposable Sketch Based Interfaces,
in Companion Proceedings of Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '96),
short paper category. ACM, New York. 1996. |
This paper describes a paradigm in which the user creates simple drawings or `sketches' of user interfaces and then interacts directly with those sketches. It introduces EtchaPad, a system utilizing this technology to implement a drawing package. Several EtchaPad widget types are described, including buttons, sliders, and compound widgets.
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Yap, C., Biermann, B., Hertzmann, A., Li, C., Meyer, J., Pao, H.S., Paxia, S., Statistical generation of city models, Proceedings of SPIE Visualization and Data Analysis 2002. |
We have developed a program which generates VRML models that have the same "texture" as Manhattan, although not the full detail. The models are generated using statistical methods, within a framework containing some fixed information.
We have also created a parser for "Block Details" files that can use the same VRML generator to output cities generated by other groups. (see below).
In this document we first outline our City generator, and then describe the Block Details parser generator.
» Home Page | Postscript
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Biermann, H., Hertzmann, A., Meyer, J., Perlin, K.,
Stateless Remote Environment Navigation with
View Compression,
NYU Technical Report 1999-784. April 22, 1999. |
We present a set of very low bandwidth techniques for navigating remote environments. In a typical setup using our system, a virtual environment resides on a server machine, and one or more users explore the environment from client machines. Each client uses previous views of the environment to predict the next view, using the known camera motion and image-based rendering techniques. The server performs the same prediction, and sends only the difference between the predicted and actual view. Compressed difference images require significantly less bandwidth than the compressed images of each frame, and thus can yield much higher frame rates. To request a view, the client simply sends the coordinates of the desired view and of the previous view to the server. This avoids the overhead of maintaining connections between the server and each client.
No restrictions are placed on the scene or the camera motions; the view compression technique may be used with arbitrarily complex 3D scenes or dynamically changing views from a web camera or a digital television broadcast. A lossy compression scheme is presented in which the client estimates the cumulative error in each frame, and requests a comprete refresh before errors become noticable. This work is applicable to remote exploration of virtual worlds such as on head-mounted displays, Digital Television, or over the Internet.
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Meyer, J., Jones, P., Sharples, M., Montgomery, A.,
The HiPWorks Authoring Environment, in
Expert Systems '92 Conference Proceedings. |
This paper introduces HiPWorks, a hypermedia authoring system built in the Poplog1 AI programming environment. HiPWorks is under development as part of the Hypermedia in Poplog (HiP) project. The aim of the paper is to illustrate how HiPWorks is used to integrate Expert and Knowledge-based systems with hypertext and hypermedia. The paper explains how expert systems can benefit from hypermedia support. It discusses some of the themes we have developed in HiPWorks, looking at metaphor, terminology, usability and scripting. It describes the framework and architecture of the HiPWorks system, including the Object Compiler, the Display Manager, the Interaction Manager and the Offline Manager. The paper outlines a demonstration application for HiPWorks.
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Meyer, J., Staples, L., Minneman, S., Naimark, M., Glassner, A., Artists and Technologists Working Together, Panel, Proceedings of ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, UIST '98, ACM, New York. 1998. |
This panel explores the dialog and interplay between artists and technologists. In the process, the panelists aim to bring considerations of art and the artistic process to the attention of the technology-oriented UIST community. We invite readers to think about how your work relates to art. We encourage the research community to look for ways to integrate art and artists within their own programs, for example, by starting artist-in-residence activities, introducing courses on art and design into CS curricula, or inviting artists to participate in projects.
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Technical articles/papers about Java that are probably now out of date:
Numeric Performance in Java
Comments on the JGNWG's proposal for improving Java's numerical computation.
Jan 99
Writing Efficient Java
Comments on writing optimal Java code. Now slightly out of date.
Jun 97
Java Virtual Machine Online Instruction Manual
This is an online DRAFT version of the instruction reference (Chapter 13)
printed in Java Virtual Machine, by Jon Meyer and Troy Downing,
published by O'Reilly Associates, ISBN 1-56592-194-1,
Dec 97