Urp: a luminous-tangible workbench for urban planning and design

  • Authors:
  • John Underkoffler;Hiroshi Ishii

  • Affiliations:
  • MIT Media Laboratory, Tangible Media Group, Cambridge, MA;MIT Media Laboratory, Tangible Media Group, Cambridge, MA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

We introduce a system for urban planning - called Urp -thatintegrates functions addressing a broad range of the fieldsconcerns into a single, physically based workbench setting. The I/OBulb infrastructure on which the application is based allowsphysical architectural models placed on an ordinary table surfaceto cast shadows accurate for arbitrary times of day; to throwreflections off glass facade surfaces; to affect a real-time andvisually coincident simulation of pedestrian-level windflow; and soon.We then use comparisons among Urp and severalearlier I/O Bulb applications as the basis for anunderstanding of luminous-tangible interactions, which resultwhenever an interface distributes meaning and functionality betweenphysical objects and visual information projectively coupled tothose objects. Finally, we briefly discuss two issues common to allsuch systems, offering them as informal thought-tools for thedesign and analysis of luminous-tangible interfaces.