Project R-1826

Mutable: The Multi-Media Multi-Touch Table (Research)

In our daily lives, we are used to interact using our whole hands. Grasping stuff, turning the page of a book, putting a post-it on our computer screen,... But when we switch to the traditional computer we have to change our ways and are constrained to that one single point, be it remotely controlled by a mouse or with direct contact using a touch screen. Though we got accustomed to this way of working, it breaks with how we interact in the real world and only provides us with one tenth of the power we could use. This project aims at creating a new software architecture for multi-touch interaction. This involves creating new building blocks that developers, designers, artists, end-users,... need to create new custom applications that take advantage of multi-touch technology. The corner stone of a successful set of applications is the suitability of the appropriate interaction techniques that allow natural interaction. The realization of these interaction techniques, in combination with support for high-quality visualization of multimedia information, is one of the main goals of this project.

01 January 2008 - 31 December 2009