DisplayObjects: A designer workbench of interactive styrofoam

DisplayObjects, by Eric Akaoka, is an organic user interface for creating computer displays on arbitrary surfaces, such as pieces of model cardboard or blocks of styrofoam. It allows easy prototyping of hardware gadgets through software/hardware fusion. The system tracks the location of the model, as well as the finger, via markers tracked through computer vision, and renders a 3D software model of the object back onto the hardware model through projection.

Paper

Akaoka, E., Ginn, T. and R. Vertegaal. DisplayObjects: Prototyping Functional Physical Interfaces on 3D Styrofoam, Paper or Cardboard Models. In Proceedings of TEI 2010. Cambridge, MA: ACM Press, 2010.

Video Paper

Akaoka, E. and Vertegaal, R. 2009. DisplayObjects: functional prototyping on real objects. In Proceedings of the 27th international Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Boston, MA, USA, April 04 - 09, 2009). CHI EA '09. ACM, New York, NY, 3507-3508 Video (MOV)