ACTO: A Modular Actuated Tangible User Interface Object

By Emanuel Vonach, Georg Gerstweiler, and Hannes Kaufmann

Abstract

We introduce a customizable, reusable actuated tangible user interface object: ACTO. Its modular design allows quick adaptations for different scenarios and setups on tabletops, making otherwise integral parts like the actuation mechanism or the physical configuration interchangeable. Drawing on the resources of well-established maker communities makes prototyping especially quick and easy. This allows the exploration of new concepts without the need to redesign the whole system, which qualifies it as an ideal research and education platform for tangible user interfaces. We present a detailed description of the hardware and software architecture of our system. Several implemented example configurations and application scenarios demonstrate the capabilities of the platform.

Reference

E. Vonach, G. Gerstweiler, H. Kaufmann: "ACTO: A Modular Actuated Tangible User Interface Object"; Talk: ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS 2014), Dresden, Germany; 11-16-2014 - 11-19-2014; in: "Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces ITS '14", ACM, (2014), 259 - 268.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{TUW-230841,     author = {Vonach, Emanuel and Gerstweiler, Georg and Kaufmann, Hannes},     title = {ACTO: A Modular Actuated Tangible User Interface Object},     booktitle = {Proceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces ITS '14},     year = {2014},     pages = {259--268},     publisher = {ACM},     url = {http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_230841.pdf},     doi = {10.1145/2669485.2669522},     keywords = {Tangible user interfaces; tabletop interaction; actuation; prototyping platform; widgets; haptics; physical control.},     note = {talk: ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS 2014), Dresden, Germany; 2014-11-16 -- 2014-11-19} } Click into the text area and press Ctrl+A/Ctrl+C or ⌘+A/⌘+C to copy the BibTeX into your clipboard… or download the BibTeX.