Spyros Vosinakis

• PhD
• Professor (Assistant) at University of the Aegean

The workshop “Performing Personality in Game Characters and Digital Narratives”,held on October 12, 2024, at the University of the Peloponnese, served as a platformfor researchers, practitioners, and enthusiasts from diverse disciplines to explorethese innovative technologies and their intersection with creative practices incharacter design. The go...

Intangible cultural heritage (ICH) represents living cultural expressions and practices that are part of the heritage of a community, and their preservation and transmission are considered highly important. Various methods and tools have been applied so far for the digitization and dissemination of ICH content including a wide range of technologies...

Damianidis, K. et al. (2024) ‘3D digital study of the historic ship-model “ARIS” of Admiral Miaoulis from the 19thcentury – VHSS Project; Preliminary Report’, in I.R. Rossi et al. (eds) Sailing through History Reading the Past – Imagining the Future. Proceedings of the 16th International Symposium on Boat & Ship Archaeology. ISBSA 16 26 September –...

Face‐to‐face communication relies extensively on non‐verbal cues (NVCs) which complement, or at times dominate, the communicative process as they convey emotions with intense salience, thus definitively affecting interpersonal communication. The capture, transference, and subsequent interpretation of NVCs becomes complicated in computer‐mediated co...

The emergence of Metaverse signifies the transformation of Virtual Reality (VR) from an isolated digital experience into a social medium, which facilitates new contexts of information exchange and communication. In fact, VR comprises the first-ever computer-mediated communication paradigm that enables the transfer of a broad range of non-verbal cue...

The information management of archaeological excavations (and the follow-up conservation and restoration of excavated objects) is complex, time consuming and laborious in practice. Currently available technological aids in the broader area of digital archaeology are limited in scope, while most are not interoperable. Herein, we propose ARtefact, a...

Hybrid physical-digital installations in museums are interactive systems or exhibits that seamlessly combine physical (tangible) artifacts with virtual environments. In the museum, hybrid installations offer direct, hands-on experiences to visitors and thus may enhance their interest and engagement. Moreover, the entanglement of tangible and virtua...

Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR), as implemented with projection mapping, is part of mixed-reality technology with numerous applications in the cultural domain. In museums, interactive projection mapping has been exploited to superimpose virtual content on exhibited artefacts, offering users various hybrid ways to interact with the artefacts’ physic...

Social Virtual Reality (SVR) platforms allow remote, synchronous interaction and communication between individuals immersed in shared virtual worlds. Such platforms commonly implement full-body motion and real-time voice communication, but often lack complete non-verbal cues support. This work presents the development process and preliminary usabil...

Location-based games can engage visitors of a cultural site in learning and sensitization activities about local heritage. This paper reflects on the design thinking approach followed to develop a mobile learning game about the cultural heritage (CH) of industrial oil production in Lesvos Island, Greece. The game starts in the museum and continues...

Social Virtual Reality (SVR) platforms allow remote, synchronous interaction and communication between individuals immersed in shared virtual worlds. Such platforms commonly implement full-body motion and real-time voice communication, but often lack complete non-verbal cues support. This work presents the development process and preliminary usabil...

Expert reviews of mobile games for cultural heritage (MG-CH) may predictively assess various aspects of game and content design in an iterative development process. They are not common because finding experts with knowledge for all aspects of MG-CH is difficult, while related heuristic sets are lengthy. Furthermore, ecologically valid evaluations o...

The research project “Mouseion Topos” (in English: “Museums Place”), focusing on traditional local settlements situated at three Aegean islands, aims to contribute to the promotion of their physiognomy and intangible cultural heritage by connecting regional museums with each settlement. The present article, part of the project’s initial phase, via...

In the field of cultural heritage, three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction of monuments is a usual activity for many professionals. The aim in this paper focuses on the new technology educational application combining science, history, and archaeology. Being involved in almost all stages of implementation steps and assessing the level of participatio...

The paper presents a mobile location-based app that promotes learning and sensitization about the Tinian marble craftsmanship, which is enlisted to the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO. It consists of a location-based game and a tour that provide semantic connections to visitors of the museum of Marble C...

The aim of our project was to create an interactive museum kit in order to prepare young elementary students for their visit the Industrial Heritage Museum of Hermoupolis, enhancing their experience and promoting a “hands-on” learning approach. This paper presents field research, design decisions and the evaluation of the Ex Machina Museum Kit. The...

Project Kirini is an autonomous interactive indoor exhibit, which utilizes the technologies of projection mapping and physical computing to highlight the cultural heritage of beekeeping in the island region of Cyclades in Greece. The team members researched and collected material on the tradition and the techniques of beekeeping from the ancient ti...

Interactive installations in museums usually adopt hybrid technologies that combine physical elements with digital content, and studies so far show that this approach enhances the interest and engagement of visitors compared to non-interactive media or purely digital environments. However, the design of such systems is complicated, as it involves a...

This paper outlines the user requirements and the design of the interface components and the interactions of the TouristHub web-based trip planning platform that aims to assist travelers in planning personalized trips. The paper concentrates in the research challenges and the methods used to elicit information from users and other stakeholders and...

Teaching introductory computer science is gradually shifting from learning a computer programming language towards acquiring more generic computational thinking skills. At the same time, more emphasis is placed nowadays in natural and playful approaches that can potentially increase student motivation and engagement. One promising such approach is...

Digital characters are software entities that look and act like real or imaginary creatures in a computer-generated environment. They are considered an important element of interactive digital heritage applications that can add significant value and increase user motivation and engagement. This chapter presents a review of the use of digital charac...

Στο έργο «Μουσείων Τόπος», το Εργαστήριο Σχεδιασμού Διαδραστικών Εφαρμογών του Πανεπιστημίου Αιγαίου (Σύρος), σε συνεργασία με το Πολιτιστικό Ίδρυμα της τράπεζας Πειραιώς (ΠΙΟΠ) και δύο σημαντικές εταιρείες τεχνολογίας (GET & DotSoft) διερευνά τις πιθανές τεχνολογικές εφαρμογές που θα μπορούσαν να αναπτυχθούν με στόχο την ψηφιακή διασύνδεση μουσείω...

User navigation in public installations displaying 3D content is mostly supported by mid-air interactions using motion sensors, such as Microsoft Kinect. On the other hand, smartphones have been used as external controllers of large-screen installations or game environments, and they may also be effective in supporting 3D navigations. This paper ai...

Στην παρούσα έρευνα βασικός στόχος είναι ο σχεδιασμός και η ανάπτυξη ενός «Εικονικού Μουσείου» («ΕΜ» για συντομία), βασισμένου στην πλούσια πολιτιστική κληρονομιά του «Αρχείου Κουνάδη», ώστε ένα ευρύτερο κοινό, εντός και εκτός της χώρας, να μπορέσει να επωφεληθεί τόσο ερευνητικά όσο και δημιουργικά. Το «Αρχείο Κουνάδη» περιλαμβάνει μία από τις μεγα...

Computational thinking is considered an important skillset for 21 st century learners and became a subject of focus in K-12 education in the recent years. It cultivates problem-solving and algorithmic thinking and can be helpful in wider aspects of everyday life, besides programming and computer science. There have been various approaches to teach...

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) education is often referred to as a 'living curriculum', reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of the field and the dynamics of many of its components, including interactive technology. Several educators have adopted (and adapted) a design studio approach to HCI courses, especially in MSc and design-oriented postg...

Computer games are quickly gaining momentum by enabling new approaches to teaching and learning experience for programming courses in K-12 curriculum. However, it remains unclear if the game interface and elements created by using three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds combined with visual programming languages or a visual programming environment ca...

Interactive walls have been employed in many museums with the aim to enhance the visitor experience. These are usually large in size and expensive, while their typical use is to present generic content about the museum. As a result, they may not be easily set-up at multiple locations inside a museum and serve the purpose of presenting narratives ab...

In this paper we present the design of an interactive experience journey at an ex-industrial textile factory. The aim is to enhance the visitors’ experience by engaging them in the work processes and flows that were taking place in the actual industrial environment and introduce them to the role of the artifacts and tools involved in real life work...

Storytelling enables us to connect through narratives that create reflections on our experiences. When storytelling concerns cultural heritage, it brings forth tangible and intangible assets that characterize activities and events of the past, which may sensitize visitors of a cultural site. In this paper, we present our cultural storytelling proje...

User navigation in 3D environments through public large-screen installations is mostly supported by mid-air interactions using motion sensors such as Microsoft Kinect. On the other hand, smartphones have been also used as external controllers of large-screen installations, and they might as well be effective in supporting 3D navigations. The aim of...

Kinesthetic interactions allow users to interact with 3D applications through their body movements and hand gestures. When kinesthetic applications are introduced in museums and heritage institutions, they add embodiment to visitor experience. An appropriate fit for kinesthetic technology in museums rests on visitors engaging in purposeful body mov...

In recent years, plenty of novel educational tools using mobile augmented reality (mobile AR) have been developed, altering the way students interact with a cultural heritage environment. Nevertheless, the relevant literature still lacks studies exploring the usability, effectiveness and acceptance of the technology by users, and there is still nee...

The design of hybrid interactions, which involve both tangible and digital aspects, is a recent trend in interactive systems for cultural heritage because it adds physicality to the interaction and affords sociality of experience. The paper presents the approach for the design, prototyping and evaluation of an interactive loom at an industrial muse...

The design of hybrid interactions, which involve both tangible and digital aspects, is a recent trend in interactive systems for cultural heritage because it adds physicality to the interaction and affords sociality of experience. The paper presents the approach for the design, prototyping and evaluation of an interactive loom at an industrial muse...

Bare-hand interaction (BHI) allows users to use their hands and fingers to interact with digital content without any attached devices or accessories. For BHI to realize widespread adoption, interaction techniques for fundamental operations, like grasp-and-release, need to be identified and optimized. This paper presents a controlled usability evalu...

Various studies have presented controversial results about the way that young students tried to cultivate and practice their computational thinking (CT) skills with Computer science concepts through the game making programming. However, there is still limited evidence addressing how the gameplay of a simulation game (SG) can be associated with the...

Digital games and playful interactive installations are considered a promising means to raising awareness about the environment and persuading people to adopt an environmental friendly behavior. However, the selection and use of appropriate methods and paradigms for designing and evaluating such systems and successfully blending the ‘fun’ element w...

Various studies have presented controversial results about the way that young students tried to cultivate and practice their computational thinking (CT) skills with Computer science concepts through the game making programming. However, there is still limited evidence addressing how the gameplay of a simulation game (SG) can be associated with the...

For Digital Cultural Heritage, 3D modeling is an essential practice for the identification, monitoring, conservation, restoration, and enhancement of archaeological objects from artifacts to monuments. In this context 3D computer graphics can support archaeology and heritage policy, offering scholars a “sixth sense” for the understanding of the pas...

Digital characters are software entities that look and act like real or imaginary creatures in a computer-generated environment. They are considered an important element of cultural heritage applications that can increase user motivation and engagement in various ways. This paper presents a review of the use of digital characters for communicating...

Game-based learning using interactive environments to impart theoretical and applied knowledge for introductory programming courses is divided in two popular approaches: " game making " and " game playing ". Various studies have been conducted following greatly the former approach in secondary and tertiary education with controversial results. Howe...

Logic Programming (LP) follows the declarative programming paradigm which novice students often find hard to grasp. The limited availability of LP visual teaching aids can lead to low motivation for learning. In this paper we present a platform for teaching Prolog programming in Virtual Worlds that enables the visual interpretation and verification...

Digital media and learning initiatives for virtual collaborative environments are contributing to the definition of new (sub-)disciplines in archaeological and heritage sciences. New nomenclature and terminology is emerging such as cyber archaeology, cyber archaeometry, virtual worlds and augmented and immersive realities; and all of them are relat...

Most virtual heritage applications focus on the high-quality representation of 'tangible' cultural heritage, leaving out other aspects of culture, such as daily life activities, customs and rituals. The use of interactive digital characters that perform actions in the environment and communicate with users can help towards this end. In this paper w...

Digitalmedia and learning initiatives for virtual collaborative environments are contributing to the definition of new (sub-)disciplines in archaeological and heritage sciences. New nomenclature and terminology is emerging such as cyber archaeology, cyber archaeometry, virtual worlds and augmented and immersive realities; and all of them are relate...

Recent advances in low-cost sensor technologies, such as Microsoft Kinect and Leap Motion allow kinaesthetic interactions with interactive 3D applications. Museums and heritage institutions can significantly benefit from kin-aesthetic applications that provide a more experiential approach for learning about cultural heritage; however detailed evalu...

Recent advances in low-cost sensor technologies, such as Microsoft Kinect and Leap Motion allow bare hand or full body interactions to be easily included in interactive 3D applications. It has already been recognized that museums and heritage institutions can significantly benefit from this new paradigm by providing a more experiential and engaging...

This paper presents ongoing work on the design and prototyping of a pervasive, role-playing game for elementary school students. The game takes place in a designated space presented as an excavation site, in which students become acquainted with a number of principal roles and tasks taking place in archaeological fieldwork. The educational goals ar...

This paper describes an affordable approach and prototype system that can enhance the accessibility of museum exhibits to visually impaired users. The approach supports the navigation in exhibition halls and the tactual exploration of exhibit replicas using touch-sensitive audio descriptions and touch gestures on a mobile device. The required techn...

The advent of electronic media, social networks and the transformation of infotainment solutions into an everyday habit has attracted the interest of creative promotion, resulting in one of the highest revenue business of today. The vast number of products and services that need to be promoted through the aforementioned channels has augmented the n...

Content-based search in a large collection of media is a task that cannot be fully automated. Semantic annotations provided by humans through crowdsourcing techniques can be attached to media elements in the form of metadata and be used by search engines to provide the required results. However, the manual annotation of large collections is a tedio...

This paper relates the experience the authors had in the Games Design Course of the Department of Product and Systems Design Engineering of the University of the Aegean when they decided to adapt an existing 3d animation TV special ("Alexandra meets the spacetoons", directed by D. Patrikios) to a game, during a semester. The director of the animate...

Creative advertising support tools have relied so far on static knowledge represented in creativity templates and decision making systems that indirectly impose restrictions on the brainstorming process. PromONTotion is a system under development that aims at creating a support tool for advertisers for the creative process of designing a novel ad c...

Logic Programming (LP) is an essential part of many academic curricula and it is extensively employed in the field of Artificial Intelligence. However, being based on a fundamentally different paradigm and lacking any visual tools for inexperienced users, its teaching may lead to confusion and low student motivation. Virtual Worlds (VWs) may help o...

Creative advertising constitutes one of the highest-budget enterprises today. The present work describes the architecture of PromONTotion, an innovative tool for supporting ad designers in setting up a new campaign. The content of existing ad videos is collaboratively tagged, while playing a multi-player web-based game, and the provided annotations...

Virtual Exhibitions are single- or multi-user realistic 3D representations of artifact collections, in which visitors navigate, observe the exhibits, learn related information about them presented in various media, and in some cases interact with them. Given that virtual exhibitions have no physical restrictions, they may host a limitless number of...

The paper suggests that virtual worlds (VWs) have many unique advantages for supporting interaction design studio activities, provided that they are designed to include appropriate workplaces and interactive tools to foster collaboration and creativity. We present an approach for employing VWs that proposes the use of prospective tools and workplac...

The practice of teaching and learning human-computer interaction (HCI) design has to develop its own approaches that balance method and technology use with reflective and situated practice. This article presents our HCI design studio course that makes a combined use of constructivist pedagogies and virtual worlds aiming to aid students critically r...

There are a growing number of problem-based learning (PBL) studies in virtual worlds (VWs); however, the suitability of these approaches is still unknown for particular knowledge domains and in full-time courses. In this paper, we argue that VWs can support a constructionist approach to PBL for blended-practice-based courses of design and engineeri...

Virtual Worlds have not been deployed widely in collaborative design, and their respective value is largely unknown. In this paper we make a combined use of established principles in design and computer-mediated communication studies to provide an account of their value for collaborative design by presenting three case studies concerned with: (a) r...

We present our postgraduate HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) design studio course that makes a combined use of the constructivist pedagogy of PBL (Problem-Based Learning) with a VW (Virtual World) design studio. The goals of the course are to:

Problem-based Learning (PBL) is an educational approach that is based on student collaboration and self-directed learning. In PBL, students learn by addressing illdefined and open-ended problems reflecting on their experiences. This paper aims to investigate the suitability of Virtual Worlds (VWs) as a platform for hosting PBL activities and to rep...

In an interaction design studio students develop interactive products with emphasis on collaboration, creativity and method use. Typically the goals of interaction design studios are to let students acquire the practical skills to apply theories and methods from relevant courses in the context of a real-world problem, and to develop their collabora...

In this paper we suggest an approach for developing programmable intelligent virtual agents over Unreal. We propose various techniques for manipulating creating and modifying Unreal Engine's actors, as well as a method for developing an additional external controller responsible for intelligent decision making by creating programmable agents.

Virtual Agents are important elements of Virtual Environments that enhance their autonomy and believability. However, current control architectures for virtual agents offer little chances for autonomous operation in highly dynamic environments, a fact that could be improved with the use of a fuzzy controller. This paper presents a fuzzy model for c...

Research on the educational value of Virtual Worlds (VWs) has revealed their potential as future learning platforms. However, further studies are needed in order to assess their effectiveness in constructivist and collaborative learning paradigms. Problem-based learning (PBL) is an educational approach, in which students learn by addressing problem...

Virtual worlds are a popular medium for communication and collaboration in 3D and they are being used as shared information spaces in various application areas. However, compared to traditional hypermedia and web-based information systems they offer little support for semantic and social navigation. In this paper, a framework for enhancing virtual...

Visiting museums and exhibitions represented in multi-user 3D environments can be an efficient way of learning about the exhibits in an interactive manner and socialising with other visitors. The rich educational information presented in the virtual environment and the presence of remote users could also be beneficial for the visitors of the physic...

Software simulations of building evacuation during emergency can provide rich qualitative and quantitative results for safety analysis. However, the majority of them do not take into account current surveys on human behaviors under stressful situations that explain the important role of personality and emotions in crowd behaviors during evacuations...

Virtual Worlds is a promising new medium for educational activities that should address several learning styles and preferences. Learning styles has long been considered a very crucial parameter for designing effective learning experiences. In this study, two learning modalities, i.e. a scenario-based virtual world and a simple web site have been e...