Welcome to CALLAS!

2006-08-07T00:00:00Z

...as Maria CALLAS provided a more emotional approach to her music, the CALLAS project will introduce emotional and natural interaction into New Media applications ...

There is currently a gap between the emerging capacity of conveying emotional aspects within multi-modal interaction and the growing expectations of people for a more natural and pervasive interaction with digital media applications in intelligent adaptive spaces.

CALLAS aims to design and develop a Framework based on a plug-in multimodal architecture, invariant to configuration of Multimodal Components, to interpret and process emotional aspects in real-time for easy and fast development of applications for Art and Entertainment, paying attention to the value of users, who are no longer passive spectators of artistic performances, but stimulating sources of human communication.

CALLAS Framework now released!

The project is developing selected scenarios for Art and Entertainment, to showcase the technology and to validate the approach to computing the aesthetic user experience in different typologies of space: theatres, home, squares, festivals, etc., as the "space" is one of the most interesting factors where human emotional interaction takes place. A strong attention is given to all interface and interaction aspects, to minimize the complexity for multimodal handling, to make creative industries and artists free to develop truly interactive art, keeping the technology burden hidden and preserving the naturalness of user interaction, not altering the spontaneity of their experience. Proof-of-Concepts are also implemented to evaluate the emotional experience of audiences and specific deployments.
The blend of competencies represented by the partners of the CALLAS Consortium set the baseline for a success, supported by the participation of external members, complementing the understanding of the requirements of artists, amateurs, technologists, performers and potential early adopters of the technology.

Vital to the project is the C³: the CALLAS Community Club, a social network where discussion threads are open, opinions shared, synergy with project developments and technology evaluation is kept , aimed to maximise the adoption and to debate on research topics and its applications. Special disseminations events reinforced the opportunity to cooperate with stakeholders: in Palermo 4/May/07 in conjunction with the 110^th anniversary of the Fondazione Teatro Massimo and in RomeÂ at Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia on 9-10/Sept/09 during CIMCIM2009.

Image credits: Giacomo mio, salviamoci! Teatro Lauro Rossi, Macerata, 1998 Â© Studio Azzurro Produzioni s.r

25-29/Oct/10 CALLAS sponsor of ACM'10

2010-07-02T11:15:42Z

CALLAS NEWS: CALLAS to sponsor ACM Multimedia 2010

The CALLAS Consortium is sponsoring next ACM Conference which will take place in Florence (Italy) on next 25-29 October.
The conference is a key event about Multimedia scientific achievements and innovative industrial products and it will host sessions, tutorials, panels and discussion meetings. The program includes also an Interactive Art session offering opportunity of interaction between artists and computer scientists and investigation on the application of multimedia technologies to art and cultural heritage.

PuppetWall Video

2010-07-01T17:15:11Z

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simone

9-11/Aug/10 CALLAS at CGIV'10

2010-05-19T08:52:08Z

CALLAS NEWS: CALLAS at CGIV 2010 Sydney

The CGIV 2010 , IEEE Computer Society, 7^th International Conference on Computer Graphics, Imaging and Visualization will be hosted by University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.

A CALLAS paper has been accepted for presentation at the conference, about:
"Expressive MPEG-4 Facial Animation Using Quadratic Deformation Models" - By M.Obaid, R.Mukundan, M.Billinghurst[HITNZ], and C.Pelachaud [TCOM]

17/May/10 CALLAS at Pervasive'10

2010-05-18T00:00:00Z

CALLAS NEWS: CALLAS at Pervasive 2010 Helsinki

CALLAS will participate to the 8^th International Conference on Pervasive Computing within the workshop â€œDesigning for Crowdâ€ (May 17). The emphasis is on investigating interaction with technology in public and semi-public places, where crowded places are a major feature of these settings. The Common Touch CALLAS Showcase will be presented by representatives of AALTO and TEES, members in CALLAS.

A CALLAS Paper will be presented at the event:
"The Common Touch: Aesthetic and affective interaction in semi-public settings" â€“ By C.Coutrix [AALTO], I. Avdouevski [AALTO], G.Jacucci[AALTO], V.Vervondel[TEES], S. Gilroy[TEES], M. Cavazza [TEES]
Abstract

Augmented Reality Output Components

2010-05-17T13:09:29Z

As AR components reference is made to ComposAR which is a crossplatform 3D content authoring environment geared towards development of interactive AR environments for arts and media designers. Watch the ComposAR video here.

Availability of the components: Reference contact is Mark Billinghurst of Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand.
Notes: The component requires ARToolKit, osgART and BuildAR: ARTtoolkit is available under the terms of the GPL from here and for commercial projects as ARToolKit Pro is licensed by ARToolworks Inc.; osgART 2.x is available under the terms of the GPL 3 from here and for commercial projects is licensed by ARToolworks Inc. ; BuildAR is available here.

25-28/May/10 CALLAS at JEP'10

2010-05-17T00:00:00Z

CALLAS NEWS: CALLAS at JEP 2010 Mons

Organised by Universiteâ€™ de Mons, the XXVIII Journees dâ€™Etude sur la Parole, will be dedicated to communication by words, speech, acoustic expressions and their applications. The research made about laughing in CALLAS:
"La base de donnÃ©es AVLaughterCycle"
will be presented to a Poster Session at the event.

10-14/May/10 CALLAS at AAMAS'10

2010-05-14T00:00:00Z

CALLAS NEWS: CALLAS at AAMAS 2010 Toronto (Canada)

Follow-up of its participation to AAMAS 2008 and AAMAS 2009, the CALLAS project attended AAMAS 2010, the 9^th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, during which workshops and tutorials discussed aspects, approaches, methods, and ideas related to specific topics, both theoretical and applied, in the general area of Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.

A CALLAS Paper was presented at the event:
"Multimodal Interaction with a Virtual Character in Interactive Storytelling" By Bee N., Wagner J., AndrÃ© E[UoA]., Charles F., Pizzi D., Cavazza M [TEES] Abstract

Framework Demonstrator Video

2010-05-11T16:49:09Z

Watch a self explaining Demo of the Final CALLAS Framework : 25 minutes lenght

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Bit & Bold

2010-05-11T12:05:31Z

A CALLAS Field Trial occurred at Museo della Scienza di Napoli (Italy) from 11 to 15 March 2010, dedicated to test an application running in an open space dedicated to science and technology at the "CittÃ della Scienza". The experiment was entusiastically welcomed and inspired the design of an interactive performance with the EUCLIDE emotional character animated by the Human Glove. as done in the Museum.

The live performance featured interaction with the public in a reinterpretation of the Snow-white tale and it was repeated in many theatres in Italy, attended by children and a large number of young guys that apparently did not notice the difference between live animation and the computer generated animation done by the scenario.

A community of fans is active on Facebook. Other videos of EUCLIDE: here