An Elevating Tangible Block for Spatial Tabletop Interaction

ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '15),
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '14)

First Author

We present an elevating tangible block, G-raff, that supports spatial interaction in a tabletop computing environment. The elevating head part of G-raff moves according to the given height and angle data. We adopted two rollable metal tape structures to create large movements with a small volume block. On the head part, a smartphone can be mounted either horizontally or vertically. G-raff becomes a device that can connect a mobile device with a tabletop computer, thus creating a new spatial representation and control interaction. This paper introduces the design details, key features, and applications of G-raff. We report on the results of a preliminary user study and discuss future work to improve the elevating device. This work contributes to maximizing the availability of augmented reality space above the tabletop display.

Interaction Design, Spatial Design, Tabletop Computing