Broad Area Colloquium For AI-Geometry-Graphics-Robotics-Vision
(CS 528)


Tangible User Interface Input: Tools and Techniques

Scott Klemmer, Stanford Computer Science
October 4, 2004, 4:15PM
TCSeq 200
http://graphics.stanford.edu/ba-colloquium/

Abstract

Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) augment the physical world by integrating digital information with everyday physical objects. Developing tangible interfaces is challenging because programmers are responsible for acquiring and abstracting physical input. This is difficult, time-consuming, and requires a high level of technical expertise, especially with computer vision. To address this, we created Papier-Mâché, a toolkit for building tangible interfaces using computer vision, electronic tags, and barcodes. Papier-Mâché introduces high-level abstractions for working with these technologies that facilitate technology portability. For example, an application can be prototyped with computer vision and deployed with RFID. The design of Papier-Mâché has been deeply influenced by his experiences building physical interfaces over the past several years, specifically The Designers' Outpost and Books with Voices. The Designers' Outpost is a tangible user interface combining the affordances of paper and large physical workspaces with the advantages of electronic media to support information design. With Outpost, users collaboratively author web site information architectures on an electronic whiteboard using physical media (Post-it notes and images). Books with Voices, based on his contextual inquiry into the practices of oral historians, provides barcode augmented paper transcripts for fast, random access to digital video interviews on a PDA.

About the Speaker

Scott Klemmer is an Assistant Profesor of Computer Science at Stanford University. He received a dual BA in Art-Semiotics and Computer Science from Brown University in 1999, and an MS and PhD in computer science from UC Berkeley in 2001 and 2004 respectively. His research addresses tangible user interfaces and user interface software tools.


Contact: bac-coordinators@cs.stanford.edu

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