[Research] Dynamic tangible user interface palette
Late update: 3-Feb-2016
Over the years digital tabletops has been explored for different usecases, including collaborative sense-making, digitizing board games, and artwork/museum installations. One thing in common is the utilization of the tabletops' large size and interactivity. This project used the same idea, but looked for a more personalized experience and in the creativity domain.
Imagine you are designing some graphics. Instead of staring at a monitor, you use physical objects and physical space to bring your creativity to reality.
Over the years digital tabletops has been explored for different usecases, including collaborative sense-making, digitizing board games, and artwork/museum installations. One thing in common is the utilization of the tabletops' large size and interactivity. This project used the same idea, but looked for a more personalized experience and in the creativity domain.
Imagine you are designing some graphics. Instead of staring at a monitor, you use physical objects and physical space to bring your creativity to reality.
Main components of the setup: a tabletop with a graphics document (a), a palette displaying detail view of the document (b), a palette displaying tool menus (c), a digital pen for fine inputs (d), work zones as physical tokens dictating what a palette should display when in proximity (e, f).
This setup combined a number of technologies to provide tailored support for the tasks:
Several concepts were explored here:
The end result was a proof-of-concept setup allowing us to explore how digital tabletops can support creative graphic design work.
This project was a collaboration between me and the User Interface & Software Engineering Group at Otto-von-Guericke University, during my research exchange at Germany. Research aside, I had a great time in Deuschland and visited a few places.
- Anoto digital pens were used for fine inputs (e.g., drawing) and selections (e.g., brush sizes and colors)
- Light-weight palettes (made of paper cardboard) were spatially tracked to provide 6-DOF input
- Projectors with projection-mapping were used to project compensate for the distortion made on tiled/rotated palettes
Several concepts were explored here:
- Physical movements of the palette mimicking traversal between ordered layers
- Work zones as physical tokens dictating what the generic palette is used for (e.g., being closed to a color palette box changes the palette into a color palette)
The end result was a proof-of-concept setup allowing us to explore how digital tabletops can support creative graphic design work.
This project was a collaboration between me and the User Interface & Software Engineering Group at Otto-von-Guericke University, during my research exchange at Germany. Research aside, I had a great time in Deuschland and visited a few places.
Related publication:
[1] Spindler, M., Cheung, V., Dachselt, R. (2013). Dynamic Tangible User Interface Palettes. In Proceedings of INTERACT 2013, p. 159-176. Cape Town, South Africa, September 2-6, 2013.
[1] Spindler, M., Cheung, V., Dachselt, R. (2013). Dynamic Tangible User Interface Palettes. In Proceedings of INTERACT 2013, p. 159-176. Cape Town, South Africa, September 2-6, 2013.
