Cut and Paste: Ambient Interaction using Annotated Cut-outs

We present a novel way of interacting with an ambient environment through semantic cut-out images. These images represent resources that appear on a regular image shot by a camera ­ people, buildings, anything of interest ­ which are cut out of the original image and pasted into a new image with transparent background. Hence these images can be placed in a different context such as a background that tells more about an object's current state. By annotating cut-outs and incorporating them in user interfaces for ambient environments, we show how the interaction experience within such environments can be made more personal, visually appealing and intuitive. To this end, we first transform a series of images and their cut-outs into a visual knowledge base.