MERL – DiamondSpin

DiamondSpin

DiamondSpin is an interactive, and platform independent, Java Tool Kit that allows multiple users to work on a digital tabletop simultaneously, in a truly around-the-table setting. DiamonmdSpin is a core project that has enabled a range of research investigations into large shared displays and off-the-desktop human computer interaction. Currently, MERL's own UbiTable project, and several research projects in other universities are based on DiamondSpin.

Background & Objective: Large shared interactive surfaces offer great potential for ubiquity of computationally augmented tables and walls. Their affordances to multi-person interactivity, concurrent simultaneous direct manipulability, and individual user identification prompt new ways of thinking in terms of UI design and interaction technique development. This, in turn, requires us to re-examine the conventional metaphor and underlying system infrastructure, both of which have been traditionally geared towards mice and keyboard-based, single-user desktop computers and devices. DiamondSpin toolkit is a research testbed, a sandbox and an evaluation vehicle in our pursuit of understanding large shared interactive surfaces.

Technical Discussion: One of the fundamental research issues in the design of a true tabletop UI is how to afford face-to-face or corner-to-corner multi-user collaboration. We are experimenting with the construction of a real-time Cartesian to Polar coordinate transformation system within Java to afford continuous orientation and arbitrary viewing angles of tabletop documents. DiamondSpin tool kit supports the construction of (a) arbitrary 2D geometric shapes of digital tabletops including rectangular, octagonal and circular interfaces, (b) multiple digital virtual tabletops, and (c) multiple personal and shared regions within the same display space. DiamondSpin also provides a set of tabletop UI functions, including document visualization and movement methods based on Fisheye techniques, Context Rooted Popup menus, multiple menu bars, and popup soft keyboards.

Outside Collaborations: DiamondSpin is distributed to universities with a free license agreement. Current DiamondSpin license holders span from North America to Europe and Japan. We are developing applications using DiamondSpin at MERL and with our university partners.

Contacts:
Adam Bogue
Clifton Forlines

Publications:
Forlines, C.; Shen, C.; Vernier, F., "Under My Finger: Human Factors in Pushing and Rotating Documents Across the Table", IFIP TC13 International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (INTERACT), September 2005 (INTERACT 2005, TR2005-070)

Hancock, M.S.; Shen, C.; Forlines, C.; Ryall, K., "Exploring Non-Speech Auditory Feedback at an Interactive Multi-User Tabletop", Conference on Graphics Interface (GI), ISBN: 0713-5424, pp. 41-50, May 2005 (Canadian Human-Computer Communications Society, TR2005-054)

Ringel-Morris, M.; Ryall, K.; Shen, C.; Forlines, C.; Vernier, F., "Beyond Social Protocols: Multi-User Coordination Policies for Co-located Groupware", ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), ISBN: 1-58113-810-5, pp. 262-265, November 2004 (ACM Press, TR2004-123)

Ryall, K.; Forlines, C.; Shen, C.; Ringel-Morris, M., "Exploring the Effects of Group Size and Table Size on Interactions with Tabletop Shared-Display Groupware", ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), ISBN: 1-58113-810-5, pp. 284-293, November 2004 (ACM Press, TR2004-124)

Shen, C.; Vernier, F.D.; Forlines, C.; Ringel, M., "DiamondSpin: An Extensible Toolkit for Around-the-Table Interaction", ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), ISBN: 1-58113-702-8, pp. 167-174, April 2004 (ACM Press, TR2004-005)

Ringel, M.; Ryall, K.; Shen, C.; Forlines, C.; Vernier, F., "Release, Relocate, Reorient, Resize: Fluid Techniques for Document Sharing on Multi-User Interactive Tables", ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), ISBN: 1 58113 703 6, pp. 1441-1444, April 2004 (ACM Press, TR2004-022)

Shen, C.; Everitt, K.M.; Ryall, K., "UbiTable: Impromptu Face-to-Face Collaboration on Horizontal Interactive Surfaces ", ACM International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp), October 2003 (UbiComp 2003, TR2003-049)

Shen, C.; Lesh, N.; Vernier, F., "Personal Digital Historian: Story Sharing Around the Table", ACM Interactions, ISSN:1072-5520, Vol. 10, Issue 2, pp. 15-22, March/April 2003 (ACM Press, TR2003-004)

Shen, C.; Lesh, N.B.; Moghaddam, B.; Beardsley, P.A.; Bardsley, R.S., "Personal Digital Historian: User Interface Design", ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), March 2001 (CHI 2001, TR2000-034)

Technology Area: Off the Desktop Interaction and Display

Modification Date: July 24, 2008