Abstract
In this paper we present interval scripts, a new paradigm for the programming of interactive environments and computer characters. In this paradigm, actions and states of the users and the system computational agents are associated with temporal intervals. Programming is accomplished by establishing temporal relationships as constraints between the intervals. Unlike previous temporal constraint-based programming languages, we employ a strong temporal algebra based in Allen's interval algebra with the ability to express mutually exclusive intervals and to define complex temporal structures. To avoid the typical computational complexity of strong temporal algebras we propose a method, PNF propagation, that projects the network implicit in the program into a simpler, 3-valued (past, now, future) network where constraint propagation can be conservatively approximated in linear time. The interval scripts paradigm is the basis of ISL, or Interval Scripts Language, that was used to build three large-scale, computer-vision-based interactive installations with complex interactive dramatic structures. The success in implementing these projects provides evidence that the interval scripts paradigm is a powerful and expressive programming method for interactive environments.
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Received: 1 May 2002 / Accepted: 5 October 2002
Acknowledgements SingSong” was written, directed, and performed by Claudio Pinhanez. It/I was written and directed by Claudio Pinhanez, and produced by Aaron Bobick; the crew was composed by John Liu, Chris Bentzel, Raquel Coelho, Leslie Bondaryk, Freedom Baird, Richard Marcus, Monica Pinhanez, Nathalie van Bockstaele, Maria Redin, Alicia Volpicelli, Nick Feamster, and the actor Joshua Pritchard. It was designed and implemented by Claudio Pinhanez based on the elements produced for It/I. Claudio Pinhanez was supported in different stages of this research by the scholarship from CNPq, process number 20.3117/89.1; by the DARPA contract DAAL01-97-K-0103; by the MIT Media Laboratory; and by the MIT Japan Program through the Starr Foundation. SingSong was sponsored by the Media Integration and Communication (MIC) laboratory of the Advanced Technology Research (ATR) laboratories in Kyoto, Japan. It/I and It were sponsored by the Digital Life Consortium of the MIT Media Laboratory.
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Pinhanez, C., Bobick, A. Interval scripts: a programming paradigm for interactive environments and agents. Pers Ubiquit Comput 7, 1–21 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-002-0209-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-002-0209-4