Claudio Pinhanez PhD Thesis - MIT 1999

REPRESENTATION AND RECOGNITION OF ACTION IN INTERACTIVE SPACES - MIT Media Laboratory, PhD Thesis, 1999. This thesis presents new theory and technology for the representation and recognition of complex, context-sensitive human actions in interactive spaces. To represent action and interaction a symbolic framework has been developed based on Roger Schank’s conceptualizations, augmented by a mechanism to represent the temporal structure of the sub-actions based on Allen’s interval algebra networks. These concepts have been tested in the context of four projects involving story-driven interactive spaces. The action representation framework has been used in the Intelligent Studio project to enhance the control of automatic cameras in a TV studio. Interval scripts have been extensively employed in the development of “SingSong”; in “It/I”, a full-length computer theater play; and in “It”, an interactive art installation based on the play “It/I” that realizes our concept of immersive stages.