Paper Title: Madgets: Actuating Widgers on Interactive Tabletops
Authors: Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski and Jan Borchers
Authors Bios:
Malte Weiss is a 4th year PhD student at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University. His research focusses on interactive surfaces and tangible user interfaces.
Florian Schwarz is a Diploma Thesis Student at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University. His thesis is about actuated translucent on interactive tabletops. His supervisor is Malte Weiss.
Simon Jakubowski is a Student Assistant at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University. He is currently working on:
- Madgets
- Aachener Frieden
- SLAP
Jan Borchers is a professor of Computer Science and is also the head of Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University. With his research group, he explores the field of human-computer interaction, with a particular interest in new post-desktop user interfaces for smart environments, ubiquitous computing, interactive exhibits, and time-based media such as audio and video.
Presentation Venue: This paper was presented at UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology in New York
Summary:
Hypothesis: The authors of this paper present a system for the actuation of tangible magnetic widgets (Madgets) on interactive tabletops. Their system combines electromagnetic actuation with fiver optic tracking to move and operate physical controls. The presented mechanism supports actuating complex tangibles that consist of multiple parts. A grid of optical fibers transmits marker positions past our actuation hardware to cameras below the table. They introduce a visual tracking algorithm that is able to detect objects and touches from the strongly sub-sampled video input of that grid. Six sample Madgets illustrate the capabilities of their approach, ranging from tangential movement and height actuation of inductive power transfer. Madgets combine the benefits of passive, untethered, and translucent tangibles with the ability to actuate them with multiple degrees of freedom.
How the hypothesis was tested: The authors haven't tested their experiments using participants. Their goal when designing Madgets was to create devices that were flexible, lightweight, and easy to build and prototype.
The authors have provided a very detailed description about the Hardware Setup:
Display
Actuation
Sensing
Widget Design
They have also given detailed instructions about how they went about the process of Tracking and also about the Exploration of the Design Space.
Discussion:
Effectiveness: The authors have provided various applications of Madgets for tangibles on tabletops:
General-Purpose Widgets: The authors' actuated table supports moving and configuring general-purpose Madgets, such as buttons, sliders, knobs, etc. A user can place a slider on the table to navigate through a video. After starting the video, the slider's knob follows the relative time position in the video, providing haptic feedback of its progress. The LCD panel displays the corresponding timeline slider visuals beneath the physical slider.
Going 3D: Height: Actuated tangibles have been mostly limited to 2-D movement. Using the authors' system, one can keep a Madget in plac and lift parts of it up from the table. For e.g. Buttons, and Clutches mentioned in the paper describe how they can be used to produce a 3-D movement on the table.
Force Feedback: Beside the inherent haptic feedback of tangible controls, actuation can provide active force feedback as an additional output channel. There are different types of feedbacks: Resistance, Vibration feedback and Dynamic notches.
Water wheel Madgets: The benefits of passive controls often come at the price of a restricted design space when creating them. In this section, the authors present two concepts to transfer energy from the actuation table to a Madget to enrich its functionality.
Reasons for being Interesting: The prototype suggested by the authors in this paper has very cool and interesting applications. Although the cost of the prototype might be a little more but it is very efficient. They authors have provided multiple applications for Madgets that are definitely worth the investment.
Faults: I did not find any faults with the prototype suggested in this paper. There are technical deficiencies but I believe this is a very efficient system.
Authors: Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski and Jan Borchers
Authors Bios:
Malte Weiss is a 4th year PhD student at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University. His research focusses on interactive surfaces and tangible user interfaces.
Florian Schwarz is a Diploma Thesis Student at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University. His thesis is about actuated translucent on interactive tabletops. His supervisor is Malte Weiss.
Simon Jakubowski is a Student Assistant at the Media Computing Group of RWTH Aachen University. He is currently working on:
- Madgets
- Aachener Frieden
- SLAP
Jan Borchers is a professor of Computer Science and is also the head of Media Computing Group at RWTH Aachen University. With his research group, he explores the field of human-computer interaction, with a particular interest in new post-desktop user interfaces for smart environments, ubiquitous computing, interactive exhibits, and time-based media such as audio and video.
Presentation Venue: This paper was presented at UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology in New York
Summary:
Hypothesis: The authors of this paper present a system for the actuation of tangible magnetic widgets (Madgets) on interactive tabletops. Their system combines electromagnetic actuation with fiver optic tracking to move and operate physical controls. The presented mechanism supports actuating complex tangibles that consist of multiple parts. A grid of optical fibers transmits marker positions past our actuation hardware to cameras below the table. They introduce a visual tracking algorithm that is able to detect objects and touches from the strongly sub-sampled video input of that grid. Six sample Madgets illustrate the capabilities of their approach, ranging from tangential movement and height actuation of inductive power transfer. Madgets combine the benefits of passive, untethered, and translucent tangibles with the ability to actuate them with multiple degrees of freedom.How the hypothesis was tested: The authors haven't tested their experiments using participants. Their goal when designing Madgets was to create devices that were flexible, lightweight, and easy to build and prototype.
The authors have provided a very detailed description about the Hardware Setup:
Display
Actuation
Sensing
Widget Design
They have also given detailed instructions about how they went about the process of Tracking and also about the Exploration of the Design Space.
Discussion:
Effectiveness: The authors have provided various applications of Madgets for tangibles on tabletops:
General-Purpose Widgets: The authors' actuated table supports moving and configuring general-purpose Madgets, such as buttons, sliders, knobs, etc. A user can place a slider on the table to navigate through a video. After starting the video, the slider's knob follows the relative time position in the video, providing haptic feedback of its progress. The LCD panel displays the corresponding timeline slider visuals beneath the physical slider.
Going 3D: Height: Actuated tangibles have been mostly limited to 2-D movement. Using the authors' system, one can keep a Madget in plac and lift parts of it up from the table. For e.g. Buttons, and Clutches mentioned in the paper describe how they can be used to produce a 3-D movement on the table.
Force Feedback: Beside the inherent haptic feedback of tangible controls, actuation can provide active force feedback as an additional output channel. There are different types of feedbacks: Resistance, Vibration feedback and Dynamic notches.
Water wheel Madgets: The benefits of passive controls often come at the price of a restricted design space when creating them. In this section, the authors present two concepts to transfer energy from the actuation table to a Madget to enrich its functionality.
Reasons for being Interesting: The prototype suggested by the authors in this paper has very cool and interesting applications. Although the cost of the prototype might be a little more but it is very efficient. They authors have provided multiple applications for Madgets that are definitely worth the investment.
Faults: I did not find any faults with the prototype suggested in this paper. There are technical deficiencies but I believe this is a very efficient system.
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