Ping Xiao

University of Helsinki | HY · Department of Computer Science

We propose a novel metaphor interpretation method, Meta4meaning. It provides interpretations for nominal metaphors by generating a list of properties that the metaphor expresses. Meta4meaning uses word associations extracted from a corpus to retrieve an approximation to properties of concepts. Interpretations are then obtained as an aggregation or...

A frequent challenge in creative tasks such as advertising is finding novel and concrete representations of abstract concepts. We cast this problem as finding, in word association networks, the relevant indirect associations of a given node. We propose a novel approach, LayerFolding, which selects nodes at increasing distances from the given node,...

To convey abstract meanings with visual elements is a frequent challenge in design. A popular vehicle of abstract meanings is the connotation of physical entities. Making designs demands a good deal of this knowledge, for the sake of novelty and appropriateness. We present two automatic knowledge extraction systems, namely VRAC and CDVS, for collec...

This paper presents Vismantic, a semi-automatic system generating proposals of visual composition (visual ideas) in order to express specific meanings. It implements a process of developing visual solutions from ‘what to say’ to ‘how to say’, which requires both conceptual and visual creativity. In particular, Vismantic extends our previous work on...

Behind every good advertisement there is a creative concept, a Big Idea. In contrast to the countless number of ads, a small number of patterns of effective communication (idea templates) have been uncovered, which are invariant across content and context. In this thesis, we investigate the formalization of idea templates and use it as the basis fo...

This paper investigates how to transform machine creativity systems into interactive tools that support human-computer co-creation. We use three case studies to identify common issues in this transformation, under the perspective of User-Centered Design. We also anal-yse the interactivity and creative behavior of the three platforms in terms of Wig...

Pictorial metaphor is a popular way of expression in creative advertising. It attributes certain desirable quali- ty to the advertised product. We adopt a general two- stage computational approach in order to generate apt metaphor ideas for pictorial advertisements. The first stage looks for concepts which have high imageability and the selling pre...

To convey abstract meaning with visual elements is a frequent challenge in design. A popular vehicle of abstract meaning is the connotation of physical entities. Making design demands a good deal of this knowledge, for the sake of novelty and appropriateness. We present two automatic knowledge extraction systems, namely VRAC and CDVS, for collect...

We present the first version of an electronic dictionary(http://vis.upf.edu/CDVS/dic2.aspx) where designers can find pictures to represent abstract concepts. It aims at the expressiveness and variety of visual expressions for abstract concepts. This dictionary is driven by an automatic knowledge extraction method, which elicits pairs of abstract co...

We present the first version of an electronic dictionary (http://vis.upf.edu/CDVS/test.aspx) where designers can find pictures to represent abstract concepts. It aims at the variety of visual expressions for an arbitrary abstract concept and the efficiency of browsing. This dictionary is driven by an automatic knowledge extraction method, which all...