An Active Tangible Device for Multitouch-Display Interaction

Abstract

In this article, we introduce an interactive tangible input device (TID) for touchscreens. Our approach complements a passive TID design by active microcontroller-driven features focusing on user-experience aspects. The TID provides battery-powered wireless operation, autonomous position sensing capabilities, visual and tactile feedback as well as multiple touch inputs and momentary buttons. The device can be accurately tracked in capacitive touchscreens, enabling novel interaction techniques for content selection and manipulation in 2D or stereoscopic tabletop environments, mid-air interaction is also supported by the use of IMU and short-to-mid-range distance sensors. Overall, we present a multi-purpose device which can be built using off-the-shelf-components, features a seamless firmware integration, Unity3D integration, and a 3D-printable body enclosure.