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William B. Cowan

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William B. Cowan

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Publications by William B. Cowan (bibliography)

» 2008 «

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Fourquet, Elodie, Cowan, William B. and Mann, Stephen (2008): Geometric Displacement on Plane and Sphere. In: Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Graphics Interface May 28-30, 2008, Windsor, Ontario, Canada. pp. 193-202.

“This paper describes a new algorithm for geometric displacement mapping. Its key idea is that all occluded solutions for an eye ray lie in two-dimensional manifolds perpendicular to the underlying surface to which the height map is applied. The manifold depends only on the eye position and surface geometry, and not on the height field. A simple stepping algorithm, moving along the surface within a manifold renders a curve of pixels to the view plane, which reduces height map rendering to a set of one-dimensional computations that can be done in parallel. The curves on the view plane for two specific underlying manifolds, a plane and a sphere, are straight lines. In this paper we focus on the specific geometry of simple underlying surfaces for which the geometry is more intuitive and the sampling of the rendered image direct.”

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» 2006 «

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Lank, Edward, Ruiz, Jaime and Cowan, William B. (2006): Concurrent bimanual stylus interaction: a study of non-preferred hand mode manipulation. In: Proceedings of the 2006 Conference on Graphics Interface 2006. pp. 17-24. Available online

“Pen/Stylus input systems are constrained by the limited input capacity of the electronic stylus. Stylus modes, which allow multiple interpretations of the same input, lift capacity limits, but confront the user with possible cognitive and motor costs associated with switching modes. This paper examines the costs of bimanual mode switching, in which the non-preferred hand performs actions that change modes while the preferred hand executes gestures that provide input. We examine three variants to control mode of a stylus gesture: pre-gesture mediation, post-gesture mediation, and mediation that occurs concurrently with stylus gesturing. The results show that concurrent mode-switching is faster than the alternatives, and, in one trial, marginally outperforms the control condition, un-moded drawing. These results demonstrate an instance in which suitably designed mode-switching offers minimal cost to the user. The implications of this result for the design of stylus input systems are highlighted.”

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» 1993 «

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Bertrand, Philippe F., Cowan, William B. and Wein, Marceli (1993): A window architecture providing predictable temporal performance. In: Graphics Interface 93 May 19-21, 1993, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pp. 146-154.

» 1992 «

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MacIntyre, Blair and Cowan, William B. (1992): A Practical Approach to Calculating Luminance Contrast on a CRT. In ACM Transactions on Graphics, 11 (4) pp. 336-347

» 1991 «

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Cowan, William B. and Loop, Sandra (1991): Perceiving window geometry: An experimental study. In: Graphics Interface 91 June 3-7, 1991, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. pp. 192-198.

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Cowan, William B., Wein, Christopher, Wein, Marceli and Booth, Kellogg S. (1991): Hardware support for multitasking graphics. In: Graphics Interface 91 June 3-7, 1991, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. pp. 199-206.

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Boritz, James, Booth, Kellogg S. and Cowan, William B. (1991): Fitts' Law studies of directional mouse movement. In: Graphics Interface 91 June 3-7, 1991, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. pp. 216-223.

Used on the following page:

» Fitts's Law: [/encyclopedia/fitts_law.html]

» 1990 «

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Cowan, William B. and Wein, M. (1990): State versus History in User Interfaces. In: Diaper, Dan, Gilmore, David J., Cockton, Gilbert and Shackel, Brian (eds.) INTERACT 90 - 3rd IFIP International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction August 27-31, 1990, Cambridge, UK. pp. 555-560.

“Recent growth in window-oriented user interfaces with the implied evolution of interaction styles has led to two distinct approaches to user interfaces. The older style is terminal oriented and can be characterized as history-based: the current state of the system is inferred by the user from his or her knowledge of the sequence of previous commands. The newer window-oriented style is state-based in that the current state of the system is displayed in the window or the dialog box. Many interfaces attempt to combine elements from the two styles. This paper discusses the distinctive characteristics of each interface style, considering particularly user requirements that are inconsistent with the conceptual organization of the interface. We conclude that the two styles provide an almost non-overlapping set of capabilities, and that the choice of interface should be determined by the user's task requirements. The inevitable desire to encompass all capabilities in one interface demands significant generalization of the interface metaphor.”

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Sun, Frankie K., Cowan, William B. and Booth, Kellogg S. (1990): Understanding visual effects in a windowed environment. In: Graphics Interface 90 May 14-18, 1990, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. pp. 100-107.

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Flinn, Scott and Cowan, William B. (1990): Visualizing the execution of multi--processor real--time programs. In: Graphics Interface 90 May 14-18, 1990, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. pp. 293-300.

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Ware, Colin and Cowan, William B. (1990): The RGYB Color Geometry. In ACM Transactions on Graphics, 9 (2) pp. 226-232

“To provide a more intuitive interface to the color gamut of a color CRT.”

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» 1989 «

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Marcus, Aaron, Cowan, William B. and Smith, Wanda J. (1989): Color in User Interface Design: Functionality and Aesthetics. In: Bice, Ken and Lewis, Clayton H. (eds.) Proceedings of the ACM CHI 89 Human Factors in Computing Systems Conference April 30 - June 4, 1989, Austin, Texas. pp. 25-27.

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Cowan, William B. (1989): Adding colour to the workstation environment. In: Graphics Interface 89 June 19-23, 1989, London, Ontario, Canada. pp. 78-85.

» 1988 «

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Bartram, Lyn, Booth, Kellogg S., Cowan, William B., Morrison, Julie B. and Tanner, Peter P. (1988): A system for conducting experiments concerning human factors in interactive graphics. In: Graphics Interface 88 June 6-10, 1988, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. pp. 34-42.

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Stone, Maureen C., Cowan, William B. and Beatty, John C. (1988): Color Gamut Mapping and the Printing of Digital Color Images. In ACM Transactions on Graphics, 7 (4) pp. 249-292

» 1987 «

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Booth, Kellogg S., Bryden, M. P., Cowan, William B., Morgan, M. F. and Plante, B. L. (1987): On the parameters of human visual performance --- An investigation of the benefits of antialiasing. In: Graphics Interface 87 (CHI+GI 87) April 5-9, 1987, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. pp. 13-19.

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Schwarz, Michael W., Cowan, William B. and Beatty, John C. (1987): An Experimental Comparison of RGB, YIQ, LAB, HSV, and Opponent Color Models. In ACM Transactions on Graphics, 6 (2) pp. 123-158

» 1984 «

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Schwarz, Michael W., Beatty, John C., Cowan, William B. and Gentleman, Jane F. (1984): Towards an effective user interface for interactive colour manipulation. In: Graphics Interface 84 May 28 - June 1, 1984, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. pp. 187-196.

» 1983 «

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Tanner, Peter P., Cowan, William B. and Wein, M. (1983): Colour selection swath brushes and memory architectures for paint systems. In: Graphics Interface 83 May 9-13, 1983, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. pp. 171-180.

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Changes to this page (author)

23 Feb 2010: Enabled abstracts to be shown on William B. Cowan's author page.
12 May 2008: Author was edited

23 Jun 2007: Author was edited
23 Jun 2007: Author was edited
23 Jun 2007: Author was edited
23 Jun 2007: Author was edited
23 Jun 2007: Author was added to the bibliography
28 Apr 2003: Added the author to the bibliography

Publication statistics

Publication period:1983-2008
Publication count:19
Number of co-authors:27

Productive colleagues

William B. Cowan's 3 most productive colleagues in number of publications:

Aaron Marcus:85
Kellogg S. Booth:46
Colin Ware:44

Collaboration count

Number of publications with 3 favourite co-authors:

Kellogg S. Booth:5
John C. Beatty:3
Marceli Wein:2

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Conference Calendar

Mar 22

Workshop on Pervasive healthcare in the home : Supporting patient motivation and engagement

Mar 22

UX People

Mar 22

ETRA '10 - Eye Tracking Research & Applications Symp.

Mar 21

“ Software design is the act of determining the user's experience with a piece of software. It has nothing to do with how the code works inside, or how big or small the code is. The designer's task is to specify completely and unambiguously the user's whole experience. ”

-- David Liddle, From Bringing Design to Software, edited by Terry Winograd, 1996 ”

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Eva Hornecker on Tangible Interaction

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William B. Cowan

Publications by William B. Cowan (bibliography)

» 2008 «

» 2006 «

» 1993 «

» 1992 «

» 1991 «

» 1990 «

» 1989 «

» 1988 «

» 1987 «

» 1984 «

» 1983 «

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