The Haptic Tabletop Puck and Toolkit
tactile feedback for interactive tabletops

In everyday life, our interactions with objects on real tables include how our fingertips feel those objects. In comparison, current digital interactive tables present a uniform touch surface that feels the same, regardless of what it presents visually. In this paper, we explore how tactile interaction can be used with digital tabletop surfaces. We present a simple and inexpensive device – the Haptic Tabletop Puck – that incorporates dynamic, interactive haptics into tabletop interaction. We created several applications that explore tactile feedback in the area of haptic information visualization, haptic graphical interfaces, and computer supported collaboration. In particular, we focus on how a person may interact with the friction, height, texture and malleability of digital objects.

Researchers

Nicolai Marquardt (PhD)
Miguel A. Nacenta (PostDoc)
David Ledo (Undergrad researcher)
Sebastian Boring (Postdoc)
James E. Young (PhD)
Saul Greenberg (Supervisor)
Sheelagh Carpendale (Supervisor)
Ehud Sharlin (Supervisor)

Key Publications

Marquardt, N., Nacenta, M., Young, J., Carpendale, S., and Greenberg, S. and Sharlin, E. (2009)
The Haptic Tabletop Puck: Tactile Feedback for Interactive Tabletops. In Proceedings of Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces - ITS'09. (Banff, Canada), ACM Press, pages 93-100, November 23-25. Includes Video Figure, also published as a standalone video (below). Earlier version as: Report 2009-936-15 and its video.
PDF Paper Video File
Ledo, D., Nacenta, M. , Marquardt, N., Boring, S. and Greenberg, S. (2012)
The HapticTouch Toolkit: Enabling Exploration of Haptic Interactions. In Proceedings of the ACM 6th International Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction - TEI'2012. (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), ACM Press, 8 pages, February 19-22. Includes Video Figure, Duration: 4:01. Earlier version as Report 2011-1012-24 (pdf) and (video).
PDF Paper Video File PowerPoint Presentation

Other Publications

Marquardt, N., Nacenta, M., Young, J., Carpendale, S., and Greenberg, S. and Sharlin, E. (2009)
The Haptic Tabletop Puck: The Video. In DVD Proceedings of Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces - ITS'09. (Banff, Canada), ACM Press, November 23-25. Duration 3:22. See companion paper.
PDF Paper Video File