A gesture language for collaborative conceptual design

Ubiquitous computing provides the new research challenges for the next generation interactions. Natural User Interface is one of the important aspects. Pen and paper are the natural and simple tools to use in our daily life, which can fit for the imprecise and flexible design mode in conceptual design. Gestures are the useful and natural mode in the pen-based interaction which can be introduced and used through the similar mode to the existing resources in interaction. Inherent problems exist with collaborative conceptual design because the simultaneous group interaction required for users to smoothly and effectively work together in the same virtual space. In this paper, we provide solutions to these problems by devising a fast and direct gesture-based user interface, a set of visual effects that better enable a user's awareness of the operations done by other participants, and a set of tools for enhancing visual communication between participants. A gesture description language (GDL) is given to provide the useful gestures to the applications conveniently.