{"652505":{"#nid":"652505","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Device Cuts Cost of Digitizing Whiteboard Content","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EDespite almost two years of online education, digitally capturing a whiteboard is still a challenge. Now, Georgia Tech researchers have created an attachment that can replicate any writing instrument\u0026rsquo;s movements for a virtual setting.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe tool uses wireless location, inertial sensors, and pressure sensing to determine where the pen is on the board and digitize those movements to stream to a computer. Costing only $100-$150, it\u0026rsquo;s nearly a tenth of the price of a smartboard. For an hour lecture, it uses just 1.5 MB of data, which is about 400 times smaller than filming the whole board.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EBefore this innovation, the two primary ways of digitizing content both had logistical problems. While a smart board is accurate, it\u0026rsquo;s often prohibitively expensive for most school budgets. Although filming video of the whiteboard is more cost effective, it results in large video files that don\u0026rsquo;t transfer well over low internet speeds. The potential inequity of this among students inspired the researchers to work on solutions.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Not being able to digitize the whiteboard increases the learning gap,\u0026rdquo; said School of Computer Science Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~dhekne\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EAshutosh Dhekne\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E. \u0026ldquo;If you have good internet connection, you can see the whiteboard clearly in a video, but if you don\u0026rsquo;t, the learning experience deteriorates quickly.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers focused on making the experience seamless for the teacher. So, they decided not to modify the whiteboard or tip of pen itself but focus on attachments.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe attachment needs to sense\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003Ewhere\u003C\/em\u003E\u0026nbsp;the pen was as a person wrote. Location tracking alone isn\u0026rsquo;t sufficient, so the researchers relied on a fusion sensor approach:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cul\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EInertial sensors: Each sensor contains an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer that can determine exact orientation of the pen on a larger frame of reference, in this case the whiteboard.\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EWireless radio technology: This tracks how far a pen is from the fixed wireless antenna sensors at the border of the whiteboard.\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EPressure sensor: This sensor detects when the pen touches the whiteboard surface, based on how much pressure is coming from the user\u0026rsquo;s grip.\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers believe this attachment could be used for more than just online learning and meetings; it could be also attached to scalpels or paintbrushes for medical or art instruction.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;Documenting the process of creating something by hand is difficult, but this tool has the potential to make that possible,\u0026rdquo; Dhekne said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDhekne, SCS Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/fac\/Mostafa.Ammar\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EMostafa Ammar\u003C\/strong\u003E,\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;and SCS Ph.D. student\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~ycao361\/\u0022\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EYifeng Cao\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E\u0026nbsp;presented the research in the paper,\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/~dhekne\/itracku_mobisys2021.pdf\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EITrackU: Tracking a Pen-like Instrument via UWB-IMU Fusion\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/a\u003E, at\u0026nbsp;The\u0026nbsp;19th\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.sigmobile.org\/mobisys\/2021\/\u0022\u003EACM International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications, and Services\u0026nbsp; (MobiSys\u003C\/a\u003E) in June.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech researchers have created an attachment that can replicate any writing instrument\u2019s movements for a virtual setting."}],"uid":"34541","created_gmt":"2021-11-05 17:29:06","changed_gmt":"2021-11-05 17:38:53","author":"Tess Malone","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2021-11-05T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2021-11-05T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"652506":{"id":"652506","type":"image","title":"Whiteboard and pen","body":null,"created":"1636133888","gmt_created":"2021-11-05 17:38:08","changed":"1636133888","gmt_changed":"2021-11-05 17:38:08","alt":"Whiteboard and pen","file":{"fid":"247555","name":"mobisys_composite.png","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mobisys_composite.png","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/mobisys_composite.png","mime":"image\/png","size":585610,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/mobisys_composite.png?itok=xQEZ1BZ-"}}},"media_ids":["652506"],"groups":[{"id":"47223","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"50875","name":"School of Computer Science"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ETess Malone, Communications Officer\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:tess.malone@cc.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Etess.malone@cc.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}