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The Haptic Tabletop Puck Toolkit

This is a completed project.

Description

In everyday life, our interactions with objects on real tables include how our fingertips feel those objects. In comparison, current digital interactive tables present a uniform touch surface that feels the same, regardless of what it presents visually. In this project, we explore how tactile interaction can be used with digital tabletop surfaces. We present a simple and inexpensive device - the Haptic Tabletop Puck - that incorporates dynamic, interactive haptics into tabletop interaction. We created several applications that explore tactile feedback in the area of haptic information visualization, haptic graphical interfaces, and computer supported collaboration. In particular, we focus on how a person may interact with the friction, height, texture and malleability of digital objects.

The project will produce the haptic puck hardware and an expressive toolkit / API that uses it. It will also illustrate how this can be exploited via various novel interaction techniques.

Images and Videos


 

Demos & Software Components

Haptic Tabletop Puck development tools is a set of files, instructions and software that facilitate the creation and development of haptic experiences for tabletop computers. It is still under active development. For more information, please click here
 

Partners

NSERC – iCORE – SMART Technologies – Alberta Ingenuity