Paper Reading #12: Enabling Beyond-Surface Interactions for Interactive Surface with An Invisible Projection

Enabling Beyond-Surface Interactions for Interactive Surface with An Invisible Projection

UIST 2010

By:
Li-Wei Chan, Hsiang-Tao Wu, Hui-Shan Kao, Ju-Chun Ko, Home-Ru Lin, Mike Y. Chen, Jane Hsu, Yi-Ping Hung.

• Li-Wei Chan has a Bachelors in Computer Science from Fu Jen Catholic University, along with a Masters from the National Taiwan University. He is also currently a PhD student there.
• Hsiang-Tao Wu is currently a student at the  National Taiwan University.
• Hui-Shan Kao is currently a student at the National Taiwan University.
• Ju-Chun Ko is currently a PhD student at the National Taiwan University.
• Home-Ru Lin is currently a student at the National Taiwan University.
• Mike Y. Chen is currently a Computer Science professor at the National Taiwan University.
• Jane Hsu is currently a Computer Science and Information Engineering professor at the National Taiwan University.
• Yi-Ping Hung has a Masters and PhD from Brown University. He is currently a professor in the Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia at the National Taiwan University.

Summary
Hypothesis
The authors of this paper propose a programmable infrared technique utilizing an invisible programmable markers for interaction beyond the standard surface of the diffused-illumination (DI) multi-touch system. This allows mobile devices with IR cameras to figure out their position in a three dimensional plane based on perceived markers.

Methods
To test their system they essentially tested three (im Lamp, im Flashlight, , im View) different applications.

The user testing was aimed at figuring out the key points (both strong and weak) of this prototype. For the key parts the users were asked to use the 3 available applications to navigate the map and achieve various checkpoints.

Results
For the most part users found all three applications usable. One of the key problems faced was focus, which im Lamp had some trouble with, however it was an issue that could be resolved by using the appropriate focal length. im Flashlight on the other hand had all sorts of trouble with focus.

Contents
The combinations of IR projectors and a colour projector content and markers visible to both the user and the IR camera on mobile devices which helps them calculate their location in 3D space. The use of multi-touch tablets and projectors allow interaction with space beyond the display plane.

im Lamp is essentially a desk lamp for Multi0touch tabletops. This involves an IR lamp wit ha pico projector connected which provided all information wherever the lamp was directed on the table top, thus allowing ease of use and movement of content anywhere on the table top.

im Flashlight is a mobile im Lamp that allows users to project content in a more mobile and versatile fashion. The flash like allows emphasis on relevant areas of the projected content.

im View (possibly the biggest contribution of this paper) is the tablet referred to earlier. It has an IR camera attached and it allows the users to explore an almost 3D geographical area.

Discussion
The use of the newer, cheaper and highly portable pico-projectors is something that fills me with joy. Considering pico-projectors are greatly underrated it's nice to see them be used for such a technical situation. That being said it seems awfully complex of a project. While the idea is genius, the implementation on a flashlight is a bit of reach. Using it with a lamp to project onto a worktable is highly useful and intelligent, ditto for the tablet pc implementation; however I find the flashlight implementation quite sad, especially considering its major focus issues. While it would be fantastic to have that ability, we just don't have sufficiently small and sufficiently decent pico-projectors to be able to pull it off.