Tangible user interfaces : past, present and future directions

In the last two decades, Tangible User Interfaces (TUIs) have emerged as a new interface type that interlinks the digital and physical worlds. Drawing upon users' knowledge and skills of interaction with the real non-digital world, TUIs show a potential to enhance the way in which people interact with and leverage digital information. However, TUI research is still in its infancy and extensive research is required in or- der to fully understand the implications of tangible user interfaces, to develop technologies that further bridge the digital and the physical, and to guide TUI design with empirical knowledge. This paper examines the existing body of work on Tangible User In- terfaces. We start by sketching the history of tangible user interfaces, examining the intellectual origins of this field. We then present TUIs in a broader context, survey application domains, and review frame- works and taxonomies. We also discuss conceptual foundations of TUIs including perspectives from cognitive sciences, phycology, and philoso- phy. Methods and technologies for designing, building, and evaluating TUIs are also addressed. Finally, we discuss the strengths and limita- tions of TUIs and chart directions for future research

RealTimeChess: Lessons from a Participatory Design Process for a Collaborative Multi-Touch, Multi-User Game

We report on a long-term participatory design process during which we designed and improved RealTimeChess, a collaborative but competitive game that is played using touch input by multiple people on a tabletop display. During the design process we integrated concurrent input from all players and pace control, allowing us to steer the interaction along a continuum between high-paced simultaneous and low-paced turn-based gameplay. In addition, we integrated tutorials for teaching interaction techniques, mechanisms to control territoriality, remote interaction, and alert feedback. Integrating these mechanism during the participatory design process allowed us to examine their effects in detail, revealing for instance effects of the competitive setting on the perception of awareness as well as territoriality. More generally, the resulting application provided us with a testbed to study interaction on shared tabletop surfaces and yielded insights important for other time-critical or attention-demanding applications.

GAINE - A Portable Framework for the Development of Edutainment Applications Based on Multitouch and Tangible Interaction

In the last few years, Multitouch and Tangible User Interfaces have emerged as a powerful tool to integrate interactive surfaces and responsive spaces that embody digital information. Besides providing a natural interaction with digital contents, they allow the interaction of multiple users at the same time, thus promoting collaborative activities and information sharing. In particular, these characteristics have opened new exploration possibilities in the edutainment context, as witnessed by the many applications successfully developed in different areas, from children’s collaborative learning to interactive storytelling, cultural heritage and medical therapy support. However, due to the availability of different multitouch and tangible interaction technologies and of different target computing platforms, the development and deployment of such applications can be challenging. To this end, in this paper we present GAINE (tanGible Augmented INteraction for Edutainment), a software framework that enables rapid prototyping and development of tangible augmented applications for edutainment purposes. GAINE has two main features. First, it offers developers high-level context specific constructs that significantly reduces the implementation burden. Second, the framework is portable on different operating systems and offers independence from the underlying hardware and tracking technology. In this paper, we also discuss several case studies to show the effectiveness of GAINE in simplifying the development of entertainment and edutainment applications based on multitouch and tangible interaction

3DTouch: A wearable 3D input device with an optical sensor and a 9-DOF inertial measurement unit

We present 3DTouch, a novel 3D wearable input device worn on the fingertip for 3D manipulation tasks. 3DTouch is designed to fill the missing gap of a 3D input device that is self-contained, mobile, and universally working across various 3D platforms. This paper presents a low-cost solution to designing and implementing such a device. Our approach relies on relative positioning technique using an optical laser sensor and a 9-DOF inertial measurement unit. 3DTouch is self-contained, and designed to universally work on various 3D platforms. The device employs touch input for the benefits of passive haptic feedback, and movement stability. On the other hand, with touch interaction, 3DTouch is conceptually less fatiguing to use over many hours than 3D spatial input devices. We propose a set of 3D interaction techniques including selection, translation, and rotation using 3DTouch. An evaluation also demonstrates the device's tracking accuracy of 1.10 mm and 2.33 degrees for subtle touch interaction in 3D space. Modular solutions like 3DTouch opens up a whole new design space for interaction techniques to further develop on.Comment: 8 pages, 7 figure

Designing information feedback within hybrid physical/digital interactions

Whilst digital and physical interactions were once treated as separate design challenges, there is a growing need for them to be considered together to allow the creation of hybrid digital/physical experiences. For example, digital games can now include physical objects (with digital properties) or digital objects (with physical properties), both of which may be used to provide input, output, or in-game information in various combinations. In this paper we consider how users perceive and understand interactions that include physical/digital objects through the design of a novel game which allows us to consider: i) the character of the space/spaces in which we interact; ii) how users perceive their operation; and iii) how we can design such objects to extend the bandwidth of information we provide to the user/player. The prototype is used as the focus of a participatory design workshop in which players experimented with, and discussed physical ways of representing the virtual in-game information. The results have been used to provide a framing for designers approaching information feedback in this domain, and highlight the requirement for further design research

Multimodal augmented reality tangible gaming

This paper presents tangible augmented reality gaming environment that can be used to enhance entertainment using a multimodal tracking interface. Players can interact using different combinations between a pinch glove, a Wiimote, a six-degrees-of-freedom tracker, through tangible ways as well as through I/O controls. Two tabletop augmented reality games have been designed and implemented including a racing game and a pile game. The goal of the augmented reality racing game is to start the car and move around the track without colliding with either the wall or the objects that exist in the gaming arena. Initial evaluation results showed that multimodal-based interaction games can be beneficial in gaming. Based on these results, an augmented reality pile game was implemented with goal of completing a circuit of pipes (from a starting point to an end point on a grid). Initial evaluation showed that tangible interaction is preferred to keyboard interaction and that tangible games are much more enjoyable

Roadmap on 3D integral imaging: Sensing, processing, and display

This Roadmap article on three-dimensional integral imaging provides an overview of some of the research activities in the field of integral imaging. The article discusses various aspects of the field including sensing of 3D scenes, processing of captured information, and 3D display and visualization of information. The paper consists of a series of 15 sections from the experts presenting various aspects of the field on sensing, processing, displays, augmented reality, microscopy, object recognition, and other applications. Each section represents the vision of its author to describe the progress, potential, vision, and challenging issues in this field