Paper Reading #13: Madgets: actuating widgets on interactive tabletops

Comments:

TBD

Reference Information:

Title: Madgets: actuating widgets on interactive tabletops

Authors:  Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski, and Jan Borchers of RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

Presentation Venue: UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology

Summary:

The researchers are attempting to create a new tangible interface on a tabletop environment using magnetic devices. The system uses electromagnetic actuators and fiber optic cables as well as cameras located beneath the table in order to create the tracking mechanism to allow this to work.

The researchers have a visual tracking algorithm to help them maintain spatial relation to the objects and detect the movement. The researchers use six of the Madgets (magnetic widgets) in order to achieve their results. Their system allows them multiple degrees of freedom with the movement.

Discussion:

I thought this device just sounded fun to play with. Even without thinking about any pragmatic application for the device, it just seems like a new toy that is a hoot to deal with. I can see how you could come up with a new gaming application for it. Alternately, I can see how this could be integrated with existing pen and paper gaming systems to give graphical aids to the players and people running the game.

I can see how this can be used for strategy meetings. This could have potential military application, as well. If you were to project graphical information onto the table top, it would not be much of a stretch to be able to use it to run command operations or simulations.