CYBERII application.pdf

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From virtual to augmented realityin financial trading:

a CYBERII applicationSoha Maad

Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

Samir GarbayaRobotics Laboratory of Versailles, Velizy, France, and

Saida BouakazUniversiteClaude Bernard Lyon 1, Lyon, France

AbstractPurpose Digital media technology is becoming an integral part of our daily activities, withwidespread penetration in various application domains including arts, medicine, education, andcommerce. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the horizon of emerging digital media technologiesin electronic financial trading with reference to a novel application drawing expertise from twoimportant fields of study, namely: digital media (video and image) processing and augmented reality.

Design/methodology/approach The paper presents an ergonomic study that considers thepotential utility and usability of augmented reality (AR) in finance. In order to justify the outcome ofthis ergonomic study, the authors describe the technology under study (CYBERII) and itsimplementation in finance. This ergonomic study is based on a comparative analysis of the use of ARwith a counterpart virtual reality (VR) approach used for the same application.

Findings The comparative analysis highlights an added value in the shift from the use of VR to ARin electronic financial trading. This added value is gained from augmented realism and less

constrained interaction. The paper discusses the challenges and rewards of the emerging digital mediatechnologies in meeting the needs of electronic commerce applications, particularly in electronicfinancial trading. The main considerations taken into account are the realism of rendering, systemportability, and widespread usability.

Originality/value This study motivates further ergonomic studies involving the evaluation ofaugmented reality integration including CYBERII technology, in the field of electronic commerce.

KeywordsImage processing, Financial markets, Communication technologies

Paper typeResearch paper

IntroductionWith the growing importance of digital media technology, there is a rising need fordeveloping new applications that harness the use of this technology while meetingvarious industries needs. With this motivating aim in mind, this paper considers anapplication that targets the financial industry and implements novel mediatechnologies developed within the scope of the CYBERII project[1]. The proposed

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1741-0398.htm

The authors would like to thank members of LIRIS lab (Jean Claude Iehl, Erwan Guillou, andBernard Peroche) for valuable discussions. Special thanks to Jean Marc Hasenfratz and the teamof GRAVIR/IMAG lab at INRIA for demonstrating the functionality of the CYBERII technologywhich was quite inspiring for the development of the application considered in this paper.

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Journal of Enterprise Information

Management

Vol. 21 No. 1, 2008

pp. 71-80

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited

1741-0398

DOI 10.1108/17410390810842264


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application grew from two previous financial applications. The first application is avirtual reality simulation depicting the role of a monopoly dealer in influencing the truesecurity price by setting his/her bid/ask prices to attract buyers and sellers (Maad et al.,2001). The second application, MARILYN (Multimodal Avatar ResponsIve LIve News

Caster), consists of a 3D virtual human avatar presenting interactively a multilinguallive financial news television program (Maad, 2003a, b, c).

While the first application simulated reality, and the second application substitutedreality (the interactive television program is presented by a virtual human instead of areal human), the application proposed in this paper is rather innovative and aims ataugmenting reality by adopting the concepts and tools developed within the scope ofthe CYBERII project.

This paper is divided into five sections. The first section overviews the field ofdigital image processing and augmented reality and tracks their widespreadpenetration in various application domains. Section 2 presents the CYBERII project, itsobjective, the developed techniques, and the target industries and applications. Section3 describes our novel application that implements CYBERII technology in the financial

market. This application features human insertion and full body interaction with avirtual world of financial indicators. Section 4 addresses major challenges for thepenetration of emerging digital media technologies, such as the CYBERII technology,in the field of electronic commerce, in particular electronic financial trading. The paperconcludes with a summary and an outlook of the potential applications andperspectives of CYBERII technology.

Digital image processing and augmented realityThis section provides an overview of digital image processing and augmented reality.It presents a synthesis of major focuses in these two fields of study and theirpenetration in various application domains.

Image processing deals with images which are two-dimensional entities capturedelectronically through a scanner or camera system that digitises the spatiallycontinuous coordinates to a sequence of 0s and 1s (Gur, 2001).

Digital image processing applications found widespread applications in documentand medical imaging, computer vision and industrial applications, remote sensing andspace applications. . .etc.

An augmented reality system is a combination of a real scene viewed by the userand a virtual scene generated by the computer that augments the scene with additionalinformation. The augmentation can be in a number of different forms and its ultimategoal is to enhance the users performance and perception of the world (Vallino, 2002).

While virtual reality (VR) applications places the user inside a three-dimensionalenvironment that closely resembles the real world, augmented reality (AR)

applications combine virtual reality with depictions of real-world objects.Augmented reality applications may include among others: medical; entertainment;

military, engineering design; robotics and telerobotics; manufacturing, maintenanceand repair; and consumer design (fashion and beauty), etc.

About the CYBERII projectThis section gives a summary of the CYBERII project: its objectives, techniques, andtarget industries and applications.

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The CYBERII project aims at simulating, in real-time, the presence of a person (e.g.

a TV presenter or a teacher) in a virtual environment. Novel paradigms of interaction

are proposed within the context of this project. These paradigms involve full body

interaction with the virtual world in real time. This goes beyond traditional modes of

interaction techniques involving the use of 3D mouse, remote control, data gloves, orhuman body motion tracking devices.

The CYBERII project adopts a five step technique to insert one or several humans in

a virtual interaction space. It uses the notion of active regions to initiate the

interaction with the virtual world. Actions are triggered upon body interaction with

active regions. This interaction may take the form of touching the active region and

may be technically sensed using image analysis techniques that identify a body

presence in the active region. As described in (Hasenfratz et al., 2003, 2004), theCYBERII technology involves the following five steps:

(1) Multi-camera image acquisition, from different viewpoints, of real moving

bodies (Figure 1).

(2) Reconstruction, modelling, and motion tracking of the acquired bodies and the

surrounding environment (Figure 2).

(3) Rendering of the reconstructed bodies and their surrounding.

(4) The creation of patterns of interaction in the rendered world using active

regions as shown in Figures 3 and 4. Examples of active regions in a virtual

interaction space include: the on/off button active regions (Figure 3) and the

moving slider (Figure 4).

Figure 2.Image-based

reconstruction

Figure 1.Image capturing

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(5) Data management and distributed parallel computing to meet the real time andrealistic rendering constraints.

The CYBERII technology targets various industries including:

. the TV industry (e.g. virtual sets and online presentations);

. the game industry (e.g. inserting real persons in the game world); and

. education and entertainment (e.g. allowing visits and presentation of remoteplaces).

Novel applications that may emerge out of the CYBERII project may include forinstance: an augmented reality environment offering new ways of playing music

through full body interaction with musical notes; and augmented virtual environmentsfor internal design involving the creation of virtual apartments where the user canchange the location and colour of furniture.

Figure 3.Interaction with: an on/offbutton

Figure 4.Interaction with a slideractive region

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The novel interaction paradigm developed by the CYBERII project, namely fullbody interaction with active regions, promises universal accessibility to media content.For instance, physically impaired users may find a greater convenience in full bodyinteraction with a virtual scene instead of interaction with a mouse, a keyboard, or a

remote control.

From virtual to augmented reality in financial tradingThis section describes an application of CYBERII technology in financial trading andillustrates the benefits of using augmented reality in this domain. Virtual realityapproach was previously used in financial trading, as described in (Lawrence, 1991;Smith, 1993; Feiner, 1993; Coull and Rothman, 1993) whereas the use of augmentedreality in this area was not previously addressed.

The added value of the shift from the use of virtual reality to augmented reality inelectronic financial trading is highlighted by comparing the implementation of theproposed financial application using CYBER II technology and its counterpart based

on virtual reality approach. The latter was previously carried out within theframework of collaboration between Warwick University in the UK and the RoboticsLaboratory of Paris in France (Maad et al., 2001). This added value is gained fromaugmented realism and less constrained user interaction. The comparison suggeststhat novel paradigm of interaction developed within the scope of the CYBERII project,namely full body interaction with active regions, promises a great penetration ofaugmented reality in electronic financial trading.

In the following paragraphs, we describe the CYBERII augmented reality financialapplication, the approach based on virtual reality in financial trading and we carry outa comparison between the two applications.

The CYBERII augmented reality financial application involves the insertion of theuser (playing the role of a financial dealer) in virtual environment, and the use of sliders

technique active regions to enable whole body interaction. During the interactionwith the 3D environment in which he is inserted, the dealer sets his/her bid/ask pricesin order to attract traders. The flow of buyers and sellers is abstractly represented bysynthetic objects generated in the augmented scene following the user interaction withactive regions. Figure 5 shows how slider technique active regions can help thedealer to adjust his quotes. The flow of buyers and sellers is represented by red balls(for sellers flow) and yellow balls (for buyers flow). The flow is triggered by body

Figure 5.The CYBERII financial

application

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interaction and illustrates the concept of augmented reality interaction techniquedeveloped in CYBERII. Slider technique active regions is used to allow the player agreater engagement and unconstrained immersion in the virtual world of financialindicators. The simulation augments the real world with perceptual knowledge about

bid-ask spread variation and about the flow of traders (buyers and sellers) as a result ofthis variation.

Virtual reality application described in (Maadet al., 2001) is similar to our proposedaugmented reality application in a sense that it involves a user playing the role ofdealer who sets the bid/ask spread to attract buyers and sellers. This application isbased on a different interaction technique. The virtual model of market simulation wascreated with dVISE[2] software tool running on a Silicon Graphics machine. Theinteraction devices include a pair of Fakespace PinchTM Gloves[3] as input device,nVisorTM head mounted display for immersive interaction and 3D sound for audiofeedback. The use of head a mounted display provides the player with a feeling ofpresence in a virtual scene of the financial market. Thus, the presence of the user(dealer) in the rendered virtual scene is not an image based reconstructed presence butrather a simulated presence. The player can take actions to set a bid and ask prices inorder attract buyers and sellers who are considered informed and uninformed traders.These actions are triggered by the dealer in making contacts between the fingertips.The prices are represented in the virtual scene by red and blue cylinders.

Figure 6 shows a snapshot of the virtual reality simulation system used for financialmarket simulation. In this model of interaction protocol, the virtual representation offinancial market is fully detached from the real world where the physical user ispresent.

While an increased perception of the financial market activities and of the role of thedealer in manipulating true security price is gained from the use of virtual reality infinancial trading described in Maad et al. (2001), the isolation of the user from the real

world and the constrained interaction (the user has to wear head mounted display andPinchTM Gloves) make the experience lived by the user (dealer) less realistic.

The use of augmented reality instead of virtual reality in our proposed CYBERIIapplication aims at linking 3D financial market simulation with real world andaugmenting the interaction realism. The augmented reality aspect of the renderedscene can be gained by adding, as a background, a synthetic depiction of the financialmarket activities.

Further perceptual augmentation is gained by a synthesized speech included asinformation cue to the dealer, inserted in the virtual scene using an imagereconstruction technique, in order to provide him with audio feedback subsequent tothe actions he takes and their effect on the flow of traders, as well as on the trends ofthe financial market (Figure 7).

Table I summarizes the comparison between the two approaches and highlights theadded value of the shift from virtual to augmented reality. This evaluation study wasbased on the users feedback after the virtual trading sessions and on their recordedlevel of perception during the interaction.

Future research related to the development of the CYBERII project and theapplication described in this paper focuses on improving the scene visualizationrealism such as the appearance of the rendered human and non-human objects in theaugmented scene.

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Challenges and promisesDespite the great promises of their use in finance, current media technologies(including digital image processing and augmented reality technologies) are not yetmature to meet industrial standards in terms of rendering realism, timeliness,portability, and widespread usability.

Many challenges may face the use of the application described in this paper by thefinance community. Three main challenges are:

(1) The maturity of the technology to serve industry needs.

(2) The choice of an appropriate medium of the application delivery (TV, internet,PC, or other home/office device).

(3) The users interest, from the financial community, in having access to suchimmerging technology.

The maturity of the technologyEarlier empirical studies conducted in Maad (2003a) reveals the limitation of 3D andaudio technologies in meeting standards for authoring interactive television content.This is attributed to the lack of realism of the media content authored using theprevalent technologies. Concerning our proposed CYBERII application, it is noticed

Figure 6.Virtual reality simulation

of financial marketactivity

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that rendered human(s) lack realism as shown in Figures 5, 6 and 7. This may affect theattraction of the financial community to adopt the current technology.

The choice of the medium of deliveryFour potential mediums of delivery for our application can be considered, theseinclude: personnel computer, internet, interactive television (ITV), or other home/officedevices. However a closer look at the hardware setup of the CYBERII system(described in Hasenfratz et al. (2003, 2004) as a networked set of four cameras, fourPCs, and one supercomputer) reveals great challenges in the portability andinteroperability of CYBERII equipment.

Users interest

The widespread penetration of the CYBERII technology among the financialcommunity depends on the current demand for applications such as the financialmarket simulation as described in this paper. If this demand ever exists, it would belimited to a small community of users who are attracted by new technologies.

In face of these challenges more research work beyond the development of thehardware needs to be undertaken in order to justify the usability and utility of theCYBERII technology. Notably to develop applications that satisfy various industrialneeds.

Figure 7.CYBERII insertion in avirtual world of financialindicators (illustrativeexample)

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Conclusion and future workThis paper presented a novel application of media technology in electronic financialtrading.Thisapplicationfeaturestheinsertionofahumaninthevirtualworldoffinancialindicators. This research work implements the technology developed within the scope ofthe CYBERII project in order to simulate transactions carried out in the financial marketbased on the dealer decisions and the flow of traders (buyers and sellers).

Following a brief introduction of the fields of digitalimage processing and augmentedreality,the paper presented an overview of the CYBERII project. The paper compared theproposedCYBERII financial application to a counterpart application using virtualrealitytool instead of augmented reality technology. The comparison highlighted an addedvalue of augmented reality approach. This added value is justified by a greater realism

and less constrained user interaction. Major challenges facing the penetration of theproposed application in the financial industry are outlined. Based on the results obtainedin this work, we can expect greater accessibility of CYBERII technology tocomputer-based applications. However, more research work is needed in order toimprove the current version of the hardware and software platform of the system.

Notes

1. http://artis.imag.fr/Projects/Cyber-II/

Virtual reality Augmented reality

Technology/toolsused

Silicon Graphics Octane machinerunning Irix6.5 and using dVISE

software as VR modelling tool

CYBERII technology (augmentedreality using image processing

techniques)Applicationcontext

Financial dealer adjusting his bid/askspread to attract buyers and sellers

Same. Financial dealer adjusting hisbid/ask spread to attract buyers andsellers

Human presence Simulated. A 3D avatar play the role ofthe human in the VR scene

Augmented. The human is inserted inthe augmented scene using imagereconstruction techniques

Medium ofinteraction

Head mounted display Pinch Gloves Unconstrained full body interactionwith active regions

Degree ofinteraction

Constrained by the medium ofinteraction

Unconstrained open ended freemovement

Realism Closed world simulation detached fromreality

Augmented reality closer to reality The augmented world involves a

virtual scene augmented with humanpresence (the human is inserted usingdigital image processing)

Added value Increased visual perceptionconstrained by the medium ofinteraction

Unconstrained augmented perception

Experience livedby the user

Virtual Real

Overall Provides an enhanced 3D simulationand navigation of the financial market

Greater realism through closerrepresentation of reality augmenteduser perception of the financial marketactivity

Table I.A comparison of the use

of virtual reality andaugmented reality in

financial marketsimulation

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2. dVISE is a trademark of Parametric Technology Corporation.

3. Pinch Gloves have sensors on the fingertips that determine if each finger is touching eitherthe palm of the hand or another finger. The result is a set of binary values, five for each hand.

References

Coull, T. and Rothman, P. (1993), Virtual reality for decision support systems, AI Expert,August, pp. 22-5.

Feiner, S. (1993), Virtual worlds research at Columbia University,Virtual Reality Systems, Vol. 1No. 1, pp. 63-6.

Gur, H.N. (2001), Image processing: an overview, white paper, Newgen Software TechnologiesLtd., New Delhi.

Hasenfratz, J.M., Lapierre, M., Gascuel, J.D. and Boyer, E. (2003), Real-time capture,reconstruction and insertion into virtual world of human actors, in Vision, Video andGraphics Conference (VVG03), pp. 49-56.

Hasenfratz, J.M., Lapierre, M. and Sillion, F. (2004), A real-time system for full body interaction,

Virtual Environments, pp. 147-56.Lawrence, T. (1991), Financial applications of virtual reality, Financial Technology Insight,

January, pp. 7-11.

Maad, S. (2003a), The potential and pitfall of interactive TV technology: an empirical study,paper presented at the International Conference on Television in Transition, held at MIT,May 2-4.

Maad, S. (2003b), MARILYN: a novel platform for intelligent interactive TV (IITV), in Jacko,J.A. and Stephanidis, C. (Eds),Human-Computer Interaction, Theory and Practice (Part 1),Vol. 1, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, pp. 1041-5.

Maad, S. (2003c), Universal access for multimodal ITV content: challenges and prospects,Universal Access, Theoretical Perspectives, Practice, and Experience: 7th ERCIMInternational Workshop on User Interfaces for All, Paris, France, October 24-25.

Maad, S., Beynon, W.M. and Garbaya, S. (2001), Realising virtual trading: what price virtualreality?, in Smith, M.J., Salvendy, G., Harris, D. and Koubek, R.J. (Eds), Usability

Evaluation and Interface Design: Cognitive Engineering, Intelligent Agents and VirtualReality, Vol. 1, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ, p. 1007.

Smith, C.R. (1993), Virtual reality: immerse yourself (financial trading), Wall Street andTechnology, Vol. 11 No. 7, pp. 10-14.

Vallino, J. (2002), Introduction to Augmented Reality, Department of Software Engineering,Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, NY.

About the authorsSoha Maad is a Post-doc at Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique(INRIA) Rhone-Alpes doing research at LIRIS Lab (Laboratoire dInfoRmatique en Images et

Systemes dinformation) in Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in France. Soha Maad is thecorresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected]

Samir Garbaya is a researcher at the Robotics Laboratory of Versailles, France.Saida Bouakaz is a Profossor in Computer Sciences at Universite Claude Bernard Lyon 1 in

France.

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