Mark Hancock
Title: Using Virtual Tools to Bring Physical Interaction to Multitouch Surfaces
Recent advances in digital technology, both in research prototypes and commercial products, have introduced a plethora of multi-touch surfaces. Perhaps because most of these devices are flat, initially most of the interfaces designed for them were 2D in nature. However, on traditional surfaces, people frequently make use of the third dimension; for example, they pick up, turn over, stack, build, and otherwise manipulate objects on physical tables. Furthermore, they frequently use the visual cues made available by the third dimension, such as viewing the different sides of an object or scene, or hiding something underneath another object. In this talk, I address the research questions of both viewing and interacting with 3D virtual artefacts on digital surfaces. I will discuss how multi-touch interaction can be designed to leverage people's understanding of the physical world. I will also describe an investigation of how multiple people perceive 3D information on large interactive displays. Further, I will describe a framework for the design of both the interaction and visual feedback of these 3D multi-touch interfaces.
Biography
Mark Hancock is currently an assistant professor at the University of
Waterloo in Canada. He has been actively engaged in research on
interactive tabletop displays.
See his website at http://www.markhancock.ca/ for further information.