TetraTetris and DiamondTouch: A Multi-User Touch Interface at Play INTERACT 2003 Collberg, Kobourov, Kobes, Trush, Smith, and Yee

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 What is a DiamondTouch Table? Looks and feels like a table A Multi-User Interface –Developed at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in 2001 –Size of Entire Table ( 36 x 24in / 91.4 x 60.96cm)

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Related Work Brown et. Al, (1990), Interact. Sears et. Al, (1990), ACM annual conference on Cooperation. LeeTiernan, S., & Grudin, J., (2001), Interact. Dietz, P., & Leigh, D., (2001), 14 th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. Cheok et. Al, (2002), Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 How Does it Work? Table surface is an array of antennas Capacitive Circuit: –table  user  receiver pad  table  pc 1cm

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Questions What are the quirks / limitations of the DiamondTouch table? Possible applications?

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 TetraTetris –Multi-user –Simultaneous input –Hand-gestures –Intuitive –Fun Design Goals:

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 TetraTetris: Rules Based off Tetris Orig. Designed for 4 Touch-take Objective: Symmetrical compounds

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Implementation Issues Finicky electronics –Electrical interference Row / col matching –Table does not match rows with columns –Does NOT distinguish what pair of corners is touched –Our solution: “The bounding box”

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Bounding Box, Cont. Takes outer-most rows and columns Can be used like a ‘lasso’ Rotational ambiguity Box Width Increase  Turn RightBox Height Increase  Turn Left

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Observations No physical separation of input from output Fast manipulation of large regions Support for multiple, simultaneous users

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Challenges Size of touch surface –33 x 20 inches (84 x 51 cm) Precision control –Table resolution (160x96) –After weighted interpolation (2560x1536) –Finger >> pixel Lack of ability to display output –7 minute solution: lots of duct tape

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Usefulness Direct touch and drag Collaborative use of the same application Manipulating several objects using the ‘bounding-box’

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Areas for Improvement Precision control / Rotational ambiguity Cost of setup Electrical interference

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 The Future? Current improvements from MERL –Less electrical interference –Now fits standard 4:3 aspect ratio (orig. 5:3) –Maturing Software Development Kit Possible applications –Cooperative architecture design –Collaborative musical composition –Coordinated disaster relief planning

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Links TetraTetris Homepage – MERL DiamondTouch Page –

Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Acknowledgements Darren Leigh, Paul Dietz, Ubicomp 2002 Workshop on Collaboration and Interactive Walls and Tables, Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories, ftp.merl.com 2002.

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Sept. 3, 2003Interact of 17 Goals of DiamondTouch: Multipoint Identifying Debris Tolerant Durable Unencumbering Inexpensive