In this paper, we explore the design and development of passive soft 3D-printed structures whose deformation can be sensed accurately without any wired connection. By 3D printing tangible interfaces consisting of flexible TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane), made from lattice structures with bespoke geometries and mechanical properties, and ferromagnetic elements using metal-infused filaments, we enable the detection of structural deformations through inductive sensing. We investigate how different ferromagnetic core configurations within flexible substrates, guided by key design parameters, influence the sensitivity, responsiveness, and deformability of the sensing system. We demonstrate that our 3D-printed inductive sensing approach allows users to switch their fully passive tangible interfaces for specialized tasks without assembly or the need to unplug wires. Our sensing approach can be integrated in portable applications, such as a smart bottle cover that captures subtle deformation to measure liquid intake, or in wearable applications, such as monitoring foot pressure in smart shoes.

We introduce a knitted inductive flex sensor which seamlessly integrates a coil and a capacitor into a soft and flexible tubular knit. By knitting enameled copper wires, we form a self-supporting coil, whose inductance changes with stretching and bending. Knitting both a coil and a parallel-wire capacitor, we create a textile resonant LC circuit, while preserving the softness, elasticity, and breathability of knitted textiles. In this paper, we present the fabrication process using an industrial knitting machine, evaluate sensor sensitivity and hysteresis over 100 bending cycles, and demonstrate the sensors versatility across joints of different radii. Our results show that knitted inductive sensors combine the wearability of soft textiles with the stability of inductive sensing, opening new sensing opportunities in healthcare, rehabilitation, and interactive electronic garments.

We introduce SqueezeMe, a soft and flexible inductive pressure sensor with high sensitivity made from ferromagnetic elastomers for wearable and embedded applications. Constructed with silicone polymers and ferromagnetic particles, this biocompatible sensor responds to pressure and deformation by varying inductance through ferromagnetic particle density changes, enabling precise measurements. We detail the fabrication process and demonstrate how silicones with varying Shore hardness and different ferromagnetic fillers affect the sensor’s sensitivity. Applications like weight, air pressure, and pulse measurements showcase the sensor’s versatility for integration into soft robotics and flexible electronics.

Textile fabrication, an ancient human technology, has evolved over millennia, transitioning from a focus on affordability and speed to a current emphasis on sustainability. With Textile ID, we envision a digital garment passport that seamlessly incorporates directly into textile surfaces as a design element to bridge the gap between sustainability and consumer engagement, transforming garments into interactive storytellers of their ecological journey. The visual surface of the garment can be scanned with a smartphone to access a unique identifier embedded within the fabric, which provides essential information about the product’s lifecycle. This work discusses the design space of various visual and textile parameters, proposes design possibilities and insights for implementation. Finally, we showcase a set of sample garment designs and provide design recommendations for designers to use in their future work.

This paper explores the development of a touch-sensitive interactive 3D central console for vehicles aimed at simplifying access to tasks unrelated to driving, such as adjusting seats and controlling music. We investigated three console designs with front surface angles of 45°, 90° and 135°. The initial study assessed how users interact with these three prototypes. Subsequently, we examined the ease with which users could reach across the different shapes. Additionally, we conducted a gesture elicitation study styled on guessability with the 135° model, focusing on user interaction with four applications: a radial menu, a 2D menu, car seat adjustments, and map navigation. Summarizing, this work aims to create a central console that is ergonomic, minimalist, and utilizes surface gestures, setting a new standard for future car interiors.

Integrating sensors into knitted input devices traditionally comes with considerable constraints for textile and UI design freedom. In this work, we demonstrate a novel, minimally invasive method for fabricating knitted sensors that overcomes this limitation. We integrate copper wire with piezoresistive enamel directly into the fabric using weft knitting to establish strain and pressure sensing cells that consist only of single pairs of intermeshed loops. The result is unobtrusive and potentially invisible, which provides tremendous latitude for visual and haptic design. Furthermore, we present several variations of stitch compositions, resulting in loop meshes that feature distinct response with respect to direction of exerting force. Utilizing this property, we are able to infer actuation modalities and considerably expand the device’s input space. In particular, we discern strain directions and surface pressure. Moreover, we provide an in-depth description of our fabrication method, and demonstrate our solution’s versatility on three exemplary use cases.

With spaceR, we present both design and implementation of a resistive force-sensor based on a spacer fabric knit. Due to its softness and elasticity, our sensor provides an appealing haptic experience. It enables continuous input with high precision due to its innate haptic feedback and can be manufactured ready-made on a regular two-bed weft knitting machine, without requiring further post-processing steps. For our multi-component knit, we add resistive yarn to the filler material, in order to achieve a highly sensitive and responsive pressure sensing textile. Sensor resistance drops by ~90% when actuated with moderate finger pressure of 2 N, making the sensor accessible also for straightforward readout electronics. We discuss related manufacturing parameters and their effect on shape and electrical characteristics and explore design opportunities to harness visual and tactile affordances. Finally, we demonstrate several application scenarios by implementing diverse spaceR variations, including analog rocker- and four-way directional buttons, and show the possibility of mode-switching by tracking temporal data.

This pictorial explores the design space for communicating surface gestures to users of textile interfaces by experimenting with the interfaces’ physical design and affordances. First, we created a collection of functional and non-functional textile samples. Their development was based on three aspects: design, fabrication, and sensing. The design aspect covered different visual (shape, color) and haptic (details, textures) designs, fabrication explored three textile-specific fabrication methods, and electronic sensing offered options for adding touch-sensing capabilities. Second, we reflected on created samples and their characteristics contrasting different designs and speculating on why some work better than others. Our main findings and insights are presented in five clusters: ergonomics, visual affordances, perception of textures, the direction of movement, and the economic usage of design elements. This intermediate-level knowledge can provide a starting point for each professional or novice designer to take inspiration from, when creating their own textile user interfaces.

In this paper, we present TexYZ, a method for rapid and effortless manufacturing of textile mutual capacitive sensors using a commodity embroidery machine. We use enameled wire as a bobbin thread to yield textile capacitors with high quality and consistency. As a consequence, we are able to leverage the precision and expressiveness of projected mutual capacitance for textile electronics, even when size is limited. Harnessing the assets of machine embroidery, we implement and analyze five distinct electrode patterns, examine the resulting electrical features with respect to geometrical attributes, and demonstrate the feasibility of two promising candidates for small-scale matrix layouts. The resulting sensor patches are further evaluated in terms of capacitance homogeneity, signal-to-noise ratio, sensing range, and washability. Finally, we demonstrate two use case scenarios, primarily focusing on continuous input with up to three degrees-of-freedom.

We present a novel method for augmenting arbitrary fabrics with textile-based pressure sensors using an off-the-shelf embroidery machine. We apply resistive textiles and conductive yarns on top of a base fabric, to yield a flexible and versatile continuous sensing device, which is based on the widespread principle of force sensitive resistors. The patches can easily be attached to measurement and/or computing devices, e.g. for controlling accessories. In this paper, we investigate the impacts of related design and fabrication parameters, introduce five different pattern designs, and discuss their pros and cons. We present crucial insights and recommendations for design and manufacturing of embroidered pressure sensors. Our sensors show a very low activation threshold, as well as good dynamic range, signal-to-noise ratio, and part-to-part repeatability.

As smart textiles are becoming more present in our lives, investigating and designing textile interfaces has started getting more and more attention. Still, very little research has been done on how to design interactive elements for non-wearable textile interfaces for the best recognition, perception, and interaction. In this paper, we present initial assumptions for designing such interfaces, which we derived from working intensively with our partners from the industry. These have been further explored with experts from the field during interviews, and finally tested in a user study. As a conclusion of the study, we define five design recommendations for textile interfaces and present several prototypes that demonstrate them in practice. Our recommendations cover tactile contrast between textures, heights, and shapes; minimal recognizable size of elements; perception of concave and convex shapes as interactive elements; indication of interaction through shape; and recognition of tactile symbols.

Introducing interactive components into furniture has proven difficult due to the different lifespans of furniture and digital devices. We present Foxels, a modular, smart furniture concept that allows users to create their own interactive furniture on demand by simply snapping together individual building blocks. The modular design makes the system flexible to accommodate a variety of interactive furniture setups, making it particularly well-suited for re-configurable spaces. Considering the trade-off between ease-of-use and high versatility, we explored a number of interaction methods that can be applied to modular interactive furniture, thereby extending the well-known tangible programming paradigm. After explaining our implementation, we demonstrate the validity of the proposed concepts by presenting how Foxels can be used in an ideation workshop along with many additional real-world examples.

We present Sonoflex, a thin-form, embroidered dynamic speaker made without using a permanent magnet. Our design consists of two flat spiral coils, stacked on top of each other, and is based on an isolated, thin (0.15 mm) enameled copper wire. Our approach allows for thin, lightweight, and textile speakers and does not require high voltage as in electrostatic speakers. We show how the speaker can be designed and fabricated and evaluate its acoustic properties as a function of manufacturing parameters (size, turn counts, turn spacing, and substrate materials). The experiment results revealed that we can produce audible sound with a broad frequency range (1.5 kHz - 20 kHz) with the embroidered speaker with a diameter of 50 mm. We conclude the paper by presenting several applications such as audible notifications and near-ultrasound communication.

We present RESi (Resistive tExtile Sensor Interfaces), a novel sensing approach enabling a new kind of yarn-based, resistive pressure sensing. The core of RESi builds on a newly designed yarn, which features conductive and resistive properties. We run a technical study to characterize the behaviour of the yarn and to determine the sensing principle. We demonstrate how the yarn can be used as a pressure sensor and discuss how specific issues, such as connecting the soft textile sensor with the rigid electronics can be solved. In addition, we present a platform-independent API that allows rapid prototyping. To show its versatility, we present applications developed with different textile manufacturing techniques, including hand sewing, machine sewing, and weaving. RESi is a novel technology, enabling textile pressure sensing to augment everyday objects with interactive capabilities.

The increased interest in interactive soft materials, such as smart clothing and responsive furniture, means that there is a need for flexible and deformable electronics. In this paper, we focus on stitch-based elastic sensors, which have the benefit of being manufacturable with textile craft tools that have been used in homes for centuries. We contribute to the understanding of stitch-based stretch sensors through four experiments and one user study that investigate conductive yarns from textile and technical perspectives, and analyze the impact of different stitch types and parameters. The insights informed our design of new stretch-based interaction techniques that emphasize eyes-free or causal interactions. We demonstrate with StretchEBand how soft, continuous sensors can be rapidly fabricated with different parameters and capabilities to support interaction with a wide range of performance requirements across wearables, mobile devices, clothing, furniture, and toys.

Constructive assemblies are tangible user interfaces (TUIs) that involve the interconnection of modular parts. As such, they offer a unique means to support us in our various and diverse activities. However, little information is available for understanding the intricacies of taking a modular, constructive assembly approach to TUI design. Based on an analysis of extensive data collected from interviews with eight world-class TUI experts, we propose a descriptive, conceptual framework to facilitate systematic investigation and critical consideration of constructive assemblies. The paper presents a lifecycle model for constructive assemblies and discusses their main design qualities and associated parameters. We demonstrate how this can be used to structure critical discussions by applying the principles to existing works and the design of our own constructive assembly.

Over the last decades, there have been numerous efforts in wearable computing research to enable interactive textiles. Most work focus, however, on integrating sensors for planar touch gestures, and thus do not fully take advantage of the flexible, deformable and tangible material properties of textile. In this work, we introduce SmartSleeve, a deformable textile sensor, which can sense both surface and deformation gestures in real-time. It expands the gesture vocabulary with a range of expressive interaction techniques, and we explore new opportunities using advanced deformation gestures, such as, Twirl, Twist, Fold, Push and Stretch. We describe our sensor design, hardware implementation and its novel non-rigid connector architecture. We provide a detailed description of our hybrid gesture detection pipeline that uses learning-based algorithms and heuristics to enable real-time gesture detection and tracking. Its modular architecture allows us to derive new gestures through the combination with continuous properties like pressure, location, and direction. Finally, we report on the promising results from our evaluations which demonstrate real-time classification.

Ambient light is starting to be commercially used to enhance the viewing experience for watching TV. We believe that ambient light can add value in meeting and control rooms that use large vertical interactive surfaces. Therefore, we equipped a large interactive whiteboard with a peripheral ambient light display and explored its utility for different scenarios by conducting two controlled experiments. In the first experiment, we investigated how ambient light can be used for peripheral notifications, and how perception is influenced by the user's position and the type of work they are engaged in. The second experiment investigated the utility of ambient light for off-screen visualization. We condense our findings into several design recommendations that we then applied to application scenarios to show the versatility and usefulness of ambient light for large surfaces.

FlexCase is a novel flip cover for smartphones, which brings flexible input and output capabilities to existing mobile phones. It combines an e-paper display with a pressure- and bend-sensitive input sensor to augment the capabilities of a phone. Due to the form factor, FlexCase can be easily transformed into several different configurations, each with different interaction possibilities. Users can use FlexCase to perform a variety of touch, pressure, grip and bend gestures in a natural manner, much like interacting with a sheet of paper. The secondary e-paper display can act as a mechanism for providing user feedback and persisting content from the main display. In this paper, we explore the rich design space of FlexCase and present a number of different interaction techniques. Beyond, we highlight how touch and flex sensing can be combined to support a novel type of gestures, which we call Grip & Bend gestures. We also describe the underlying technology and gesture sensing algorithms. Numerous applications apply the interaction techniques in convincing real-world examples, including enhanced e-paper reading and interaction, a new copy and paste metaphor, high degree of freedom 3D and 2D manipulation, and the ability to transfer content and support input between displays in a natural and flexible manner.

Today's commercially available prosthetic limbs lack tactile sensation and feedback. Recent research in this domain focuses on sensor technologies designed to be directly embedded into future prostheses. We present a novel concept and prototype of a prosthetic-sensing wearable that offers a non-invasive, self-applicable and customizable approach for the sensory augmentation of present-day and future low to mid-range priced lower-limb prosthetics. From consultation with eight lower-limb amputees, we investigated the design space for prosthetic sensing wearables and developed novel interaction methods for dynamic, user-driven creation and mapping of sensing regions on the foot to wearable haptic feedback actuators. Based on a pilot-study with amputees, we assessed the utility of our design in scenarios brought up by the amputees and we summarize our findings to establish future directions for research into using smart textiles for the sensory enhancement of prosthetic limbs.

In this paper we evaluated the possible application of a passive, optical sensor as an interface for human-smart glasses interactions. The designed proximity sensor is composed of set of photodiodes and the appropriate hardware and software components. First, experiments were performed for the estimations of such parameters as distance to an object, its width and velocity. Achieved results were satisfactory. Therefore, next, a set of static and dynamic hand gestures was proposed together with the related recognition method. The method was verified during experiments with volunteers. Experiments have shown that in appropriate lighting conditions it is possible to detect static and dynamic simple hand gestures using inexpensive and computationally efficient sensor. These features enable the use of such a sensor as one of the smart glasses interfaces.

We at the Media Interaction Lab are investigating the use of interactive surfaces for collaborative environments. With the increasing development of interactive walls, interactive tables, and multi-touch devices, both companies and academics are evaluating their potential for wider use. These newly emerging form factors require novel human-computer interaction techniques which will be discussed in this presentation. Our research goal is to design, develop, and evaluate natural user interfaces that will enable everyone, not just experts, to use large, interactive surfaces. In this work, we will describe particular challenges and solutions for the design of interactive wall environments as well as the development of a new flexible input sensor.

Early research on head-worn computers (HWCs) has focused on hardware and specific applications. However, there is little research about the everyday usage of head-worn computers in particular aspects such as: context of use, social acceptance across different activities, audiences and interaction techniques. This paper provides insights into the use of head-worn computers by capturing the opinions of novice and expert users through a survey, a three-week diary study, and interviews. The overarching finding is that the context of use is critical, either due to the need to support micro-interactions, or because the interaction paradigm itself should depend on the context of use.

Industrial designers have a tangible working style. However, compared to digital data, physical mockups are difficult to copy and share over distance. They require a lot of physical space, and earlier versions are lost once they are modified. In this paper, we introduce Catch-Up 360, a tool designed for sharing physical mockups over distance to gain feedback from remote located designers, and compare current models with earlier versions. Summarizing, our approach provides a simple, intuitive, and tangible UI that supports the use of lightweight, web-based clients by using remote manipulation of the physical objects.

Structuring and rearranging free-hand sketches on large interactive surfaces typically requires making multiple stroke selections. This can be both time-consuming and fatiguing in the absence of well-designed selection tools. Investigating the concept of automated clustering, we conducted a background study which highlighted the fact that people have varying perspectives on how elements in sketches can and should be grouped. In response to these diverse user expectations, we present cLuster, a flexible, domain-independent clustering approach for free-hand sketches. Our approach is designed to accept an initial user selection, which is then used to calculate a linear combination of pre-trained perspectives in real-time. The remaining elements are then clustered. An initial evaluation revealed that in many cases, only a few corrections were necessary to achieve the desired clustering results. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our approach in a variety of application scenarios.

During everyday office work we are used to controlling our computers with keyboard and mouse, while the majority of our body remains unchallenged and the physical workspace around us stays largely unattended. Addressing this untapped potential, we explore the concept of turning a flexible office chair into a ubiquitous input device. To facilitate daily desktop work, we propose the utilization of semaphoric chair gestures that can be assigned to specific application functionalities. The exploration of two usage scenarios in the context of focused and peripheral interaction demonstrates high potential of chair gestures as additional input modality for opportunistic, hands-free interaction.

In this paper, we present Presstures, an extension to current multi-touch operations that enriches common multi-finger gestures with pressure information. By using the initially applied pressure level for implicit mode switching, a gesture can be enhanced with different functionalities to enlarge the interaction space for multi-touch. To evaluate the feasibility of our concept, we conducted an experiment, which indicates good human sensorimotor skills for performing multi-touch gestures with a few number of pressure levels and without any additional feedback. Based on the experimental results, we discuss implications for the design of pressure-sensitive multi-touch gestures, and propose application scenarios that make optimal use of our concept.

Post-it notes are a popular paper format that serves a multitude of purposes in our daily lives, as they provide excellent affordances for quick capturing of informal notes, and location-sensitive reminding. In this paper, we present Move-it, a system that combines Post-it notes with a technologically enhanced paperclip to demonstrate how a passive piece of paper can be turned into an "active" medium that conveys information through motion. We present two application examples that investigate the applicability of Move-it sticky notes for ambient information awareness. In comparison to existing notification systems, experimental results show that they reduce negative effects of interruptions on emotional state and performance, and provide unique affordances by combining advantages of physical and digital systems into a novel active paper interface.

We present Tracs, a dual-sided see-through display system with controllable transparency. Traditional displays are a constant visual and communication barrier, hindering fast and efficient collaboration of spatially close or facing co-workers. Transparent displays could potentially remove these barriers, but introduce new issues of personal privacy, screen content privacy and visual interference. We therefore propose a solution with controllable transparency to overcome these problems. Tracs consists of two see-through displays, with a transparency-control layer, a backlight layer and a polarization adjustment layer in-between. The transparency-control layer is built as a grid of individually addressable transparency-controlled patches, allowing users to control the transparency overall or just locally. Additionally, the locally switchable backlight layer improves the contrast of LCD screen content. Tracs allows users to switch between personal and collaborative work fast and easily and gives them full control of transparent regions on their display.

We present FlexSense, a new thin-film, transparent sensing surface based on printed piezoelectric sensors, which can reconstruct complex deformations without the need for any external sensing, such as cameras. FlexSense provides a fully self-contained setup which improves mobility and is not affected from occlusions. Using only a sparse set of sensors, printed on the periphery of the surface substrate, we devise two new algorithms to fully reconstruct the complex deformations of the sheet, using only these sparse sensor measurements. An evaluation shows that both proposed algorithms are capable of reconstructing complex deformations accurately. We demonstrate how FlexSense can be used for a variety of 2.5D interactions, including as a transparent cover for tablets where bending can be performed alongside touch to enable magic lens style effects, layered input, and mode switching, as well as the ability to use our device as a high degree-of-freedom input controller for gaming and beyond.

This paper presents 3D-Board, a digital whiteboard capable of capturing life-sized virtual embodiments of geographically distributed users. When using large-scale screens for remote collaboration, awareness for the distributed users' gestures and actions is of particular importance. Our work adds to the literature on remote collaborative workspaces, it facilitates intuitive remote collaboration on large scale interactive whiteboards by preserving awareness of the full-body pose and gestures of the remote collaborator. By blending the front-facing 3D embodiment of a remote collaborator with the shared workspace, an illusion is created as if the observer was looking through the transparent whiteboard into the remote user's room. The system was tested and verified in a usability assessment, showing that 3D-Board significantly improves the effectiveness of remote collaboration on a large interactive surface.

Overview+Detail interfaces can be used to examine the details of complex data while retaining the data's overall context. Dynamic data introduce challenges for these interfaces, however, as moving objects may exit the detail view, as well as a person's field of view if they are working at a large interactive surface. To address this "off-view" problem, we propose a new information visualization technique, called Canyon. This technique attaches a small view of an off-view object, including some surrounding context, to the external boundary of the detail view. The area between the detail view and the region containing the off-view object is virtually "folded" to conserve space. A comparison study was conducted contrasting the benefits and limitations of Canyon to an established technique, called Wedge. Canyon was more accurate across a number of tasks, especially more complex tasks, and was comparably efficient.

Triggering commands on large interactive surfaces is less efficient than on desktop PCs. It requires either large physical movements to reach an interaction area (e.g., buttons) or additional operations to call context menus (e.g., dwell). There is a lack of efficient ways to trigger shortcuts. We introduce Kolibri - a pen-based gesture system that allows fast access of commands on interactive whiteboards. Users can draw tiny gestures (approx. 3 mm) anywhere on the surface to trigger commands without interfering with normal inking. This approach does neither require entering a gesture mode, nor dedicated gesture areas. The implementation relies on off-the-shelf hardware only. We tested the feasibility and explored the properties of this technique with several studies. The results from a controlled experiment show significant benefits of Kolibri comparing to an existing approach.

Interactive spaces are ubiquitous computing environments for computer-supported collaboration that exploit and enhance the existing cognitive, physical and social skills of users or groups of users. The workshop aims at documenting and advancing the current state-of-the-art of co-located collaboration in interactive spaces and identifying research challenges and formulating a research agenda by inviting high-quality position and research papers from HCI, Information Visualization, CSCW and CSCL.

When multiple users are simultaneously sharing a workspace, it is not always clear what should happen when a user invokes an undo action. In this paper we explore different user interfaces for undo/redo for co-located collaborative workspaces, such as large interactive whiteboards. A preliminary study revealed that users expect neither a global nor personal undo, but rather a regional undo. We propose and evaluate three automatic regional undo/redo techniques (clustering, workspace, field of view) designed for a large interactive whiteboard. The results of the evaluation showed that an undo technique based on users' field of view was most preferred, while the content-based clustering technique produced most errors. We conclude with potential improvements to the developed techniques, and propose a set of design recommendations for implementing regional undo/redo on large interactive surfaces.

Ferroelectric material supports both pyro- and piezoelectric effects that can be used for sensing pressures on large, bended surfaces. We present PyzoFlex, a pressure-sensing input device that is based on a ferroelectric material. It is constructed with a sandwich structure of four layers that can be printed easily on any material. We use this material in combination with a high-resolution Anoto-sensing foil to support both hand and pen input tracking. The foil is bendable, energy-efficient, and it can be produced in a printing process. Even a hovering mode is feasible due to its pyroelectric effect. In this paper, we introduce this novel input technology and discuss its benefits and limitations.

In this paper we present Geckos, a new type of tangible objects which are tracked using a Force-Sensitive Resistance sensor. Geckos are based on low-cost permanent magnets and can also be used on non-horizontal surfaces. Unique pressure footprints are used to identify each tangible Gecko. Two types of tangible object designs are presented: Using a single magnet in combination with felt pads provides new pressure-based interaction modalities. Using multiple separate magnets it is possible to change the marker footprint dynamically and create new haptic experiences. The tangible object design and interaction are illustrated with example applications. We also give details on the feasibility and benefits of our tracking approach and show compatibility with other tracking technologies.

In this paper, we present the Harpoon selection tool, a novel selection technique specifically designed for interactive whiteboards. The tool combines area cursors and crossing to perform complex selections amongst a large number of unsorted, ungrouped items. It is optimized for large-scale pen-based surfaces and works well in both dense and sparse surroundings. We describe a list of key features relevant to the design of the tool and provide a detailed description of both the mechanics as well as the feedback of the tool. The results of a user study are described and analyzed to confirm our design. The study shows that the Harpoon tool performs significantly faster than Tapping and Lassoing.

In this paper, we present NiCEBook, a paper notebook that supports taking, structuring and reusing notes. Through a study of note-taking habits, we observed that different strategies are used to organize and share notes. Based on these observations, we developed a design for a notebook that combines different approaches to better support these activities. The details of our design were informed by an additional online survey. We emphasize the need to examine the characteristics of taking notes with paper notebooks in order to develop a digital system that resembles the quality of traditional writing. With NiCEBook, we present a solution that combines the flexibility and simplicity of taking notes on paper with the benefits of a digital representation. We demonstrate the capabilities of our system through customized views, searching and sharing functionality.

Current technological solutions that enable content creation and sharing during group discussion meetings are often cumbersome to use, and are commonly abandoned for traditional paper-based tools, which provide flexibility in supporting a wide range of working styles and task activities that may occur in a given meeting. Paper-based tools, however, have their own drawbacks; paper-based content is difficult to modify or replicate. We introduce a novel digital meeting room design, the NiCE Discussion Room, which integrates digital and paper tools into a cohesive system with an intuitive pen-based interface. The combination of digital and paper media provides groups with a flexible design solution that enables them to create, access, and share information and media from a variety of sources to facilitate group discussions. This paper describes the design solution, along with results from a user study conducted to evaluate the usability and utility of the system. © 2010 ACM.

Many research projects have demonstrated the benefits of bimanual interaction for a variety of tasks. When choosing bimanual input, system designers must select the input device that each hand will control. In this paper, we argue for the use of pen and touch two-handed input, and describe an experiment in which users were faster and committed fewer errors using pen and touch input in comparison to using either touch and touch or pen and pen input while performing a representative bimanual task. We present design principles and an application in which we applied our design rationale toward the creation of a learnable set of bimanual, pen and touch input commands.

In this paper, we describe a paper-based interface, which combines the physical (real) with the digital world: while interacting with real paper printouts, users can seamlessly work with a digital whiteboard at the same time. Users are able to send data from a real paper to the digital world by picking up the content (e.g. images) from real printouts and drop it on the digital surface. The reverse direction for transferring data from the whiteboard to the real paper is supported through printouts of the whiteboard page that are enhanced with integrated Anoto patterns. We present four different interaction techniques that show the potential of this paper and digital world combination. Moreover, we describe the workflow of our system that bridges the gap between the two worlds in detail.

VoodooSketch is a system that extends interactive surfaces with physical interface palettes on which users can dynamically deploy controls as shortcut to application functionality. The system provides physical 'plug and play' controls as well as support for sketching of controls, and allows controls to be associated with application functions via handwritten labels. The system uses a special digital pen, which writes 'real' ink on the palettes while functioning as a digital input device on the interactive surfaces. The palettes can be seamlessly integrated into existing applications, be appropriated by the user to suit different input requirements, and support new interaction styles across multiple surfaces, palettes and users.

In most work environments people archive both the real and digital versions of their documents. But unlike the digital world, in the physical world locating a document can become a very time consuming task. The reason for this is the lack of a direct connection between the physical and digital versions of documents.

We present sketchy-ar-us, a modified, realtime version of the Loose and Sketchy algorithm used to render graphics in an AR environment. The primary challenge was to modify the original algorithm to produce a NPR effect at interactive frame rate. Our algorithm renders moderately complex scenes at multiple frames per second. Equipped with a handheld visor, visitors can see the real environment overlaid with virtual objects with both the real and virtual content rendered in a non-photorealistic style.

Creative and innovative people have good ideas for new kinds of Mixed Reality applications. Applications designed by artists for example enrich the exhibitions of modern museums. Developing such an MR application is a complex task, which nowadays is realized by software engineers. We have developed an authoring tool, which integrates a user-friendly and intuitive calibration tool for developing MR applications.

Mixed reality is a very useful and powerful instrument for the visualization of processes, including the assembly process. A Mixed Reality based step-by-step furniture assembly application is introduced. On the one hand context related actions are given to the user to install elements. On the other hand an intuitive way for authors to create new MR based assembly instructions is provided. Our goal is to provide a powerful, flexible and easy-to-use authoring wizard for assembly experts, allowing them to author their new assembly instructor for hierarchical structures. This minimizes the costs for the creation of new mixed reality assembly instructors.

No abstract available.

Shadows add a level of realism to a rendered image. Moreover, they are used as visual clues to determine spacial relationships and real-time shadows will gain importance in current real-time computer graphics applications for this reason. Twenty-five years ago, Crow published the shadow volume approach for determining shadowed regions of a scene. In this paper we present a modified real-time shadow volume algorithm that can be used in an Augmented/Mixed Reality application. Finally, the proposed concepts provide a novel sense of visual output of an AR application.