Tangible and Embedded Interaction 

About: Tangible and Embedded Interaction is an academic conference. The conference publishes majorly in the area(s): Interaction design & User interface. Over the lifetime, 1375 publications have been published by the conference receiving 27148 citations.

The reacTable: exploring the synergy between live music performance and tabletop tangible interfaces

Abstract: In recent years we have seen a proliferation of musical tables. Believing that this is not just the result of a tabletop trend, in this paper we first discuss several of the reasons for which live music performance and HCI in general, and musical instruments and tabletop interfaces in particular, can lead to a fertile two-way cross-pollination that can equally benefit both fields. After that, we present the reac Table, a musical instrument based on a tabletop interface that exemplifies several of these potential achievements.

Tangible bits: beyond pixels

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 design by using digital technology and at the same time taking advantage of human abilities to grasp and manipulate physical objects and materials. This paper discusses a model of TUI, key properties, genres, applications, and summarizes the contributions made by the Tangible Media Group and other researchers since the publication of the first Tangible Bits paper at CHI 1997. http://tangible.media.mit.edu/

Gesture recognition with a Wii controller

Abstract: In many applications today user interaction is moving away from mouse and pens and is becoming pervasive and much more physical and tangible. New emerging interaction technologies allow developing and experimenting with new interaction methods on the long way to providing intuitive human computer interaction. In this paper, we aim at recognizing gestures to interact with an application and present the design and evaluation of our sensor-based gesture recognition. As input device we employ the Wii-controller (Wiimote) which recently gained much attention world wide. We use the Wiimote's acceleration sensor independent of the gaming console for gesture recognition. The system allows the training of arbitrary gestures by users which can then be recalled for interacting with systems like photo browsing on a home TV. The developed library exploits Wii-sensor data and employs a hidden Markov model for training and recognizing user-chosen gestures. Our evaluation shows that we can already recognize gestures with a small number of training samples. In addition to the gesture recognition we also present our experiences with the Wii-controller and the implementation of the gesture recognition. The system forms the basis for our ongoing work on multimodal intuitive media browsing and are available to other researchers in the field.

reacTIVision: a computer-vision framework for table-based tangible interaction

Abstract: This article provides an introductory overview to first-time users of the reacTIVision framework -- an open-source cross-platform computer-vision framework primarily designed for the construction of table-based tangible user interfaces. The central component of the framework is a standalone application for fast and robust tracking of fiducial markers in a real-time video stream. The framework also defines a transport protocol for efficient and reliable transmission of object states via a local or wide area network. In addition, the distribution includes a collection of client example projects for various programming environments that allow the rapid development of unique tangible user interfaces. This article also provides a discussion of key points relevant to the construction of the necessary table hardware and surveys some projects that have been based on this technology.

Do tangible interfaces enhance learning

Abstract: Conceptual work on tangible interfaces has focused primarily on the production of descriptive frameworks. While this work has been successful in mapping out a space of technical possibilities and providing a terminology to ground discussion, it provides little guidance on the cognitive or social effects of using one type of interface or another. In this paper we look at the area of learning with tangible interfaces, suggesting that more empirically grounded research is needed to guide development. We provide an analytic framework of six perspectives, which describes latent trends and assumptions that might be used to motivate and guide this work, and makes links with existing research in cognitive science and education.