GaussBits: magnetic tangible bits for portable and occlusion-free near-surface interactions

  • Authors:

  • Rong-Hao Liang;Kai-Yin Cheng;Liwei Chan;Chuan-Xhyuan Peng;Mike Y. Chen;Rung-Huei Liang;De-Nian Yang;Bing-Yu Chen

  • Affiliations:

  • National Taiwan University & Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan;National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan;Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan;National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan;National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan;National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan;Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan;National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

We present GaussBits, which is a system of the passive magnetic tangible designs that enables 3D tangible interactions in the near-surface space of portable displays. When a thin magnetic sensor grid is attached to the back of the display, the 3D position and partial 3D orientation of the GaussBits can be resolved by the proposed bi-polar magnetic field tracking technique. This portable platform can therefore enrich tangible interactions by extending the design space to the near-surface space. Since non-ferrous materials, such as the user's hand, do not occlude the magnetic field, interaction designers can freely incorporate a magnetic unit into an appropriately shaped non-ferrous object to exploit the metaphors of the real-world tasks, and users can freely manipulate the GaussBits by hands or using other non-ferrous tools without causing interference. The presented example applications and the collected feedback from an explorative workshop revealed that this new approach is widely applicable.