Guess it’s time to talk a little about my master’s thesis project: wikiWall.
The idea has been in my mind for quite a long time, since i’m a big fan of Visual Knowledge Building tools, like concept mapping and spatial hypertexts.
I used and explored many software products (for concept mapping in particular) and always had this questions: how
would the knowledge building process change if we could use hands
instead of a mouse? If we could work together in front of a big screen
instead of working on laptops, diving our eyes in small screens?Well, wikiWall will try to give answers to these questions.
In the first part of this year i had the chance to know Ph.D Alessandro Valli, lead researcher in the Natural Interaction Lab based in Florence and shared with him my vision. Now i’m developing the system with his precious aid and experience.
Also, this is the right place to thank my professor, supervisor from University of Bologna, Fabio Vitali, and my co-supervisor from University of Florence Alberto Del Bimbo.

WikiWall is composed of three main parts, read more about it in the project page, and i am now implementing the low level hand driver to recognize hands and fingertips on a whiteboard or a table.
This means going back to the days of realtime graphics programming of OrcishTribes, and coding in C++ for maximum perfomance, so it’s sweet dreams..
It’s now a month i’m implementing the core algorithms for the computer vision module and results are very good.
So… stay tuned!