Abstract

We have developed a drawing system that combines tangible drawing tools, such as a ruler, compass, protractor and set square with two display technologies: capacitive displays and an interactive tabletop. The system allows users to construct geometric drawings by manipulating familiar physical objects and drawing with a finger or stylus. There are three core components to this system: the tangible hardware, the sensing of these tangibles and the drawing application. Our software works in tandem with the recognizable tangibles to provide intelligent visual drawing guides that enhances the drawing experience and helps users to draw more accurately. The challenges in developing such tools include: construction of tangibles that are both easy to use and readily recognized, providing accurate recognition of the tangibles’ position, and design interaction support for drawing.

Beryl Plimmer is an Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. The main focus of her research is tangible interaction, with particular interest in intelligent support for sketching diagrams. This work ranges from investigating the effect of working with different visual fidelities, to developing better recognition engines and designing compelling user experiences. She has also integrated some of these ideas into a multimodal system for teaching handwriting to the visually impaired and multi-touch interfaces for 3D modelling. More information on her research can be found at “linkname”: http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/research/hci/