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ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (ACM CHI 2013)
GaussBits: Magnetic Tangible Bits
for Portable and Occlusion-Free Near-Surface Interactions
Rong-Hao Liang1, 2 Kai-Yin Cheng1 Liwei Chan2 Chuan-Xhyuan Peng3
Mike Y. Chen1 Rung-Huei Liang3 De-Nian Yang2 Bing-Yu Chen1
1National Taiwan University
2Academia Sinica
3National Taiwan University of Science and Technology
howieliang@cmlab.csie.ntu.edu.tw
GaussBits support occlusion-free tangible interactions on and above the portable display. (a) Magnetic sensor grid for sensing GaussBits. (b) The tangible flight simulation, GaussPilot, allows users to pilot the flight by setting the orientation of a toy aircraft. (c) Sensed magnetic field image of the GaussPilot, from which the 3D position and tilt information can be obtained. (d) Inside the toy aircraft, a magnetic unit is stuffed for sensing.
Abstract
We present GaussBits, which is a system of the passive magnetic tangible designs that enables 3D tangible interactions in the near-surface space of portable displays. When a thin magnetic sensor grid is attached to the back of the display, the 3D position and partial 3D orientation of the GaussBits can be resolved by the proposed bi-polar magnetic field tracking technique. This portable platform can therefore enrich tangible interactions by extending the design space to the near-surface space. Since non-ferrous materials, such as the user's hand, do not occlude the magnetic field, interaction designers can freely incorporate a magnetic unit into an appropriately shaped non-ferrous object to exploit the metaphors of the real-world tasks, and users can freely manipulate the GaussBits by hands or using other non-ferrous tools without causing interference. The presented example applications and the collected feedback from an explorative workshop revealed that this new approach is widely applicable.
Press
EE Times - Taiwan funds smartphone innovations
Paper
Video
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(New!) How to get the GaussSense boards?
Further readings: Project Gauss: Portable Object Tracking Using Magnetic Sensor Grid
BibTex
@inproceedings{Liang:CHI13:GaussBits, author = {Liang, Rong-Hao and Cheng, Kai-Yin and Chan, Liwei and Peng, Chuan-Xhyuan and Chen, Mike Y. and Liang, Rung-Huei and Yang, De-Nian and Chen, Bing-Yu}, title = {GaussBits: Magnetic Tangible Bits for Portable and Occlusion-Free Near-Surface Interactions}, booktitle = {CHI '13: Proceedings of the 31th annual ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human-Factors in Computing Systems}, year = {2013}, isbn = {978-1-4503-1899-0}, pages = {1391--1400}, location = {Paris, France}, publisher = {ACM}, }