Abstract
Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) provide physical form to digital information and computation, facilitating the direct manipulation of bits. Our goal in TUI development is to empower collaboration, learning, and decision-making by using digital technology and at the same time taking advantage of human abilities to grasp and manipulate physical objects and materials. This paper presents a new generation of TUIs that enable dynamic sculpting and computational analysis using digitally augmented continuous physical materials. These new types of TUI, which we have termed 'Continuous TUIs', offer rapid form giving in combination with computational feedback. Two experimental systems and their applications in the domain of landscape architecture are discussed here, namely 'Illuminating Clay' and 'SandScape'. Our results suggest that by exploiting the physical properties of continuous soft materials such as clay and sand, it is possible to bridge the division between physical and digital forms and potentially to revolutionise the current design process.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ishii H and Ullmer B: 'Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people', Bits and Atoms, in Proceedings of Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '97), Atlanta, ACM Press, pp 234—241 (March 1997).
Underkoffler J and Ishii H: 'Urp: A luminous-tangible workbench for urban planning and design', Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '99), Pittsburgh, PA, USA (May 1999).
Turner K: 'Spatial data technologies', Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM (2000).
Cartwright W, Crampton J, Gartner G, Miller S, Mitchell K, Siekierska E and Wood J: 'User interface issues for spatial information visualisation', Cartography and Geographical Information Systems (CaGIS), 28, No 1, pp 45—60 (2001).
Elvins T T and Jain R: 'Engineering a human factor-based geographic user interface', IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 18, No 3, pp 66—77 (1998).
Buckley A R, Gahegan M and Clarke K: 'Geographic visualisation', Research white paper of the University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) (2000) — http://www.ucgis.org/
Oviatt S and Cohen P: 'Multimodal interfaces that process what comes naturally', Communications of the ACM, 43, No 3, pp 45— 53 (2000).
Estalrich J and Trilla J: 'GATAGRASS: a graphical user interface for using with Grass GIS', Computers & Geosciences, 24, No 5, pp 501—506 (1998).
Neteler M and Mitasova H: 'Open source GIS: A GRASS GIS approach', Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, 689, Boston, MA, USA, Kluwer Academic Press (2002).
Kalawsky R: 'The science of virtual reality and virtual environments', Reading, MA, Addison Wesley (1993).
Faust N L: 'The virtual reality of GIS', Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, 22, pp 257—268 (1995).
Kumaradevan P and Kumar S: 'Virtual reality and distributed GIS', Proceedings of the 2001 GITA Annual Conference, San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, CA, USA (March 2001).
Koller D, Lindstrom P, Ribarsky W, Hodges L F, Faust N and Turner G: 'Virtual GIS: a real-time 3D geographic information system', IEEE Visualisation '95, Atlanta, GA, USA (November 1995).
Germs R, Maren G, van Verbree E and Jansen F: 'A multi-view VR interface for 3D GIS', Computers & Graphics, 23, No 4, pp 497— 506 (1999).
Slocum T A, Blok C, Jiang B, Koussoulakou A, Montello D R, Fuhrmann S and Hedley N R: 'Cognitive and usability issues in geovisualisation', Cartography and Geographical Information Systems (CaGIS), 28, No 1, pp 61—75 (2001).
Takuma A, Shibasaki R and Fujii M: 'Development of new user interface for 3D GIS using mobile terminal', Proceeding of 18th Asian Conference on Remote Sensing (ACRS), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (October 1997).
Ghadirian P and Bishop I D: 'Composition of augmented reality and GIS to visualise environmental changes', Proceedings of the joint AURISA and Institution of Surveyors Conference, pp 25—30, Adelaide, Australia (November 2002).
Pasman W, van der Schaaf A, Lagendijk R L and Jansen F W: 'Accurate overlaying for mobile augmented reality', Computers & Graphics, 23, pp 875—881 (1999).
Phantom Arm (2003) —http://www.sensable.com/
Agrawala M, Beers A and Levoy M: '3D painting on scanned surfaces', Proceedings of the 1995 Symposium on Interactive 3D graphics, Monterey, CA, USA (April 1995).
Raskar R, Welch G and Chen W: 'Table-top spatially augmented reality: bringing physical models to life with projected imagery', Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Augmented Reality (IWAR 99), San Francisco, CA, USA (October 1999).
Bandyopadhyay D, Raskar R and Fuchs H: 'Dynamic shader lamps: painting on movable objects', Proceedings IEEE and ACM International Symposium on Augmented Reality 2001 (ISAR 2001) New York, NY, USA (October 2001).
Ullmer B and Ishii H: 'Emerging frameworks for tangible user interfaces', IBM Systems Journal, 393, No 3, pp 915—931 (2000).
Frazer J: 'An evolutionary architecture', London, UK, Architectural Association (1995).
Wellner P: 'Interacting with paper on the digital desk', Communications of the ACM, 36, No 7, pp 86—96 (1993).
Coors V, Jung V and Jasnoch U: 'Using the virtual table as an interaction platform for collaborative urban planing', Computer & Graphics, 23, pp 487—496 (1999).
Massie T: 'A tangible goal for 3D modelling', IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, 18, No 3, pp 62—65 (1998).
Appleton K, Lovett A S, Sunnenberg G and Dockerty T: 'Rural landscape visualisation from GIS databases: a comparison of approaches, options and problems', Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 26, pp 141—162 (2002).
Piper B, Ratti C and Ishii H: 'Illuminating Clay: a 3-D tangible interface for landscape analysis', Proceedings of the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '02), Minneapolis, MN, USA (April 2002).
Minolta Vivid-900 TM — http://www.minolta-3d.com/
Debevec P E and Malik J: 'Recovering high dynamic range radiance maps from photographs', Proceedings of SIGGRAPH'97, 24th Annual Conference on Computer Graphics, Los Angeles, CA, USA (August 1997).
Burrough P A and McDonnell R A: 'Principles of geographical information systems', Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press (1998).
Ratti C and Richens P: 'Urban texture analysis with image processing techniques', in Proceedings of CAADFutures99, Atlanta, GE (May 1999).
Ben-Joseph E, Ishii H and Underkoffler J: 'Urban simulation and the luminous planning table: bridging the gap between the digital and the tangible', Journal of Planning Education and Research, 21, pp 195—202 (2001).
MIT OpenCourseWare (2004) — http://ocw.mit.edu/
Piper B: 'The illuminated design environment: a 3-D tangible interface for landscape analysis', MS Thesis at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, USA (June 2002).
Shamonsky D: 'Tactile spatial interfaces for computer-aided design: superimposing physical media and computation', PhD Thesis at the Massachusetts institute of Technology, Boston, MA, USA (2003).
About this article
Cite this article
Ishii, H., Ratti, C., Piper, B. et al. Bringing Clay and Sand into Digital Design — Continuous Tangible user Interfaces. BT Technology Journal 22, 287–299 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BTTJ.0000047607.16164.16
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:BTTJ.0000047607.16164.16