Cindy Skach
Aaron Kirkes
Reference Information
Jonathan Hook, Stuart Taylor, Alex Butler, Nicolas Villar, Shahram Izadi, UIST'09 Oct 4-7, 2009, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Summary
The research being done in this article was again in user input to a machine. The specifics, however, were quite different from the normal inventive process. The idea here was to incorporate ferromagnetic substances in order to make it turn into any object that would be suitable to have as an input device. A large ball could be put up to the machine and allow for it to morph into a trackball-like device for example. Many sensor coils are used in order to sense the change in magnetic field to determine where an object is placed and the shape of it. Within the article they explain some of the applications that this technology might help with in real world situations. They give a scenario of a modeling program that is used to show virtual clay. The user then uses the ferromagnetic device to 'squish' down certain areas. These actions are picked up by the sensors and then translated into the program. This will allow the user to model the clay and virtually turn it into whatever they want. Also another example would be using the device to have the user have finger input in order to make sound. The pressure at which you press down can be used to translate into volume of the note or other aspects like tonality.
Discussion
I like the idea of this device but I see some conflicts with it. For most of the paper the authors describe aspects of their device that are quite similar to multi-touch devices of today. They rarely mention anything that it does that goes above and beyond this. They did mention some aspects in 3D modeling that could occur and they should bring focus to that more. But also I think the ferrous compound using aspect is just not a way to go if cost and maintenance is taken into account.
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