Upper limb exercise is often neglected during post-stroke rehabilitation. Video games have been shown to be useful in providing environments in which patients can practise repetitive, functionally meaningful movements, and in inducing neuroplasticity. The design of video games is often focused upon a number of fundamental principles, such as reward, goals, challenge and the concept of meaningful play, and these same principles are important in the design of games for rehabilitation. Further to this, there have been several attempts for the strengthening of the relationship between commercial game design and rehabilitative game design, the former providing insight into factors that can increase motivation and engagement with the latter. In this article, we present an overview of various game design principles and the theoretical grounding behind their presence, in addition to attempts made to utilise these principles in the creation of upper limb stroke rehabilitation systems and the outcomes of their use. We also present research aiming to move the collaborative efforts of designers and therapists towards a model for the structured design of these games and the various steps taken concerning the theoretical classification and mapping of game design concepts with intended cognitive and motor outcomes.

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Today, exposure to new and unfamiliar environments is a necessary part of daily life. Effective communication of location-based information through location-based services has become a key concern for cartographers, geographers, human-computer interaction and professional designers alike. Recently, much attention was directed towards Augmented Reality (AR) interfaces. Current research, however, focuses primarily on computer vision and tracking, or investigates the needs of urban residents, already familiar with their environment. Adopting a user-centred design approach, this paper reports findings from an empirical mobile study investigating how tourists acquire knowledge about an unfamiliar urban environment through AR browsers. Qualitative and quantitative data was used in the development of a framework that shifts the perspective towards a more thorough understanding of the overall design space for such interfaces. The authors analysis provides a frame of reference for the design and evaluation of mobile AR interfaces. The authors demonstrate the application of the framework with respect to optimization of current design of AR.

Today, exposure to new and unfamiliar environments is a necessary part of daily life. Effective communication of location-based information through location-based services has become a key concern for cartographers, geographers, human-computer interaction and professional designers alike. Recently, much attention was directed towards Augmented Reality (AR) interfaces. Current research, however, focuses primarily on computer vision and tracking, or investigates the needs of urban residents, already familiar with their environment. Adopting a user-centred design approach, this paper reports findings from an empirical mobile study investigating how tourists acquire knowledge about an unfamiliar urban environment through AR browsers. Qualitative and quantitative data was used in the development of a framework that shifts the perspective towards a more thorough understanding of the overall design space for such interfaces. The authors analysis provides a frame of reference for the design and evaluation of mobile AR interfaces. The authors demonstrate the application of the framework with respect to optimization of current design of AR.

We present a biologically motivated livor mortis simulation that is capable of modelling the colouration changes in skin caused by blood pooling after death. Our approach consists of a simulation of post mortem blood dynamics and a layered skin shader that is controlled by the haemoglobin and oxygen levels in blood. The object is represented by a layered data structure made of a triangle mesh for the skin and a tetrahedral mesh on which the blood dynamics are simulated. This allows us to simulate the skin discolouration caused by livor mortis, including early patchy appearance, fixation of hypostasis and pressure induced blanching. We demonstrate our approach on two different models and scenarios and compare the results to real world livor mortis photographic examples.