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}@cs.arizona.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

1cm

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Questions

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

• Possible applications?

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TetraTetris

– Multi-user– Simultaneous

input– Hand-gestures– Intuitive– Fun

• Design Goals:

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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

Box Width Increase Turn Right Box Height Increase Turn Left

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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 >> 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 4:3 aspect ratio (orig. 5:3) – 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