TetraTetris and DiamondTouch: A MultiUser Touch Interface at Play

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TetraTetris and DiamondTouch A Multi-User Touch
Interface at Play

• INTERACT 2003
• Collberg, Kobourov, Kobes, Trush, Smith, and Yee
• collberg,kobourov,kobes,strush,bsmith,gyee_at_cs.ar
  izona.edu

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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)

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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), 14th Annual ACM
  Symposium on User Interface Software and
  Technology.
• Cheok et. Al, (2002), Personal and Ubiquitous
  Computing.

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How Does it Work?

• Table surface is an array of antennas
• Capacitive Circuit
• table ? user ? receiver pad ? table ? pc

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Questions

• What are the quirks / limitations of the
  DiamondTouch table?
• Possible applications?

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TetraTetris

• Design Goals

• Multi-user
• Simultaneous input
• Hand-gestures
• Intuitive
• Fun

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TetraTetris Rules

• Based off Tetris
• Orig. Designed for 4
• Touch-take
• Objective Symmetrical compounds

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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

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Bounding Box, Cont.

• Takes outer-most rows and columns
• Can be used like a lasso
• Rotational ambiguity

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Observations

• No physical separation of input from output
• Fast manipulation of large regions
• Support for multiple, simultaneous users

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Challenges

• Size of touch surface
• 33 x 20 inches (84 x 51 cm)
• Precision control
• Table resolution (160x96)
• After weighted interpolation (2560x1536)
• Finger gtgt pixel
• Lack of ability to display output
• 7 minute solution lots of duct tape

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Usefulness

• Direct touch and drag
• Collaborative use of the same application
• Manipulating several objects using the
  bounding-box

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Areas for Improvement

• Precision control / Rotational ambiguity
• Cost of setup
• Electrical interference

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The Future?

• Current improvements from MERL
• Less electrical interference
• Now fits standard 43 aspect ratio (orig. 53)
• Maturing Software Development Kit
• Possible applications
• Cooperative architecture design
• Collaborative musical composition
• Coordinated disaster relief planning

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Links

• TetraTetris Homepage
• http//tetratetris.cs.arizona.edu
• MERL DiamondTouch Page
• http//www.merl.com/projects/DiamondTouch

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Acknowledgements

• Darren Leigh, Paul Dietz, Ubicomp 2002 Workshop
  on Collaboration and Interactive Walls and
  Tables, 2002.
• Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories,
  www.merl.com, ftp.merl.com 2002.

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Goals of DiamondTouch

• Multipoint
• Identifying
• Debris Tolerant
• Durable
• Unencumbering
• Inexpensive