Radical Atoms: Beyond Tangible Bits, Toward Transformable Materials Cover Story by Hiroshi Ishii, Dávid Lakatos, Leonardo Bonanni, and Jean-Baptiste Labrune
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Volume XIX.1 | january + february 2012 Radical Atoms: Beyond Tangible Bits, Toward Transformable Materials Cover Story by Hiroshi Ishii, Dávid Lakatos, Leonardo Bonanni, and Jean-Baptiste Labrune Association for Computing Machinery CoVer storY Radical Atoms: Beyond Tangible Bits, Toward Transformable Materials Hiroshi Ishii MIT Media Lab | [email protected] Dávid Lakatos MIT Media Lab | [email protected] Leonardo Bonanni MIT Media Lab | [email protected] Jean-Baptiste Labrune MIT Media Lab | [email protected] Graphical user interfaces (GUIs) appearance dynamically, so they let users see digital informa- are as reconfigurable as pixels on tion only through a screen, as if a screen. Radical Atoms is a vision looking into a pool of water, as for the future of human-material depicted in Figure 1 on page 40. interactions, in which all digital We interact with the forms below information has physical mani- through remote controls, such as festation so that we can interact a mouse, a keyboard, or a touch- directly with it—as if the iceberg screen (Figure 1a). Now imagine had risen from the depths to reveal an iceberg, a mass of ice that pen- its sunken mass (Figure 1c). etrates the surface of the water 2 012 and provides a handle for the mass From GuI to TuI beneath. This metaphor describes Humans have evolved a heightened tangible user interfaces: They act ability to sense and manipulate Februar y as physical manifestations of com- the physical world, yet the digital + putation, allowing us to interact world takes little advantage of our directly with the portion that is capacity for hand-eye coordina- made tangible—the “tip of the ice- tion. A tangible user interface berg” (Figure 1b). (TUI) builds upon our dexterity Radical Atoms takes a leap beyond by embodying digital informa- tangible interfaces by assuming a tion in physical space. Tangible hypothetical generation of mate- design expands the affordances interactions January rials that can change form and of physical objects so they can 38 CoVer storY CoVer STorY support direct engagement eral attention to make information ment to be directly coupled to digi- with the digital world [1,2]. directly manipulable and intui- tal information, it has limited abil- Graphical user interfaces repre- tively perceived through our fore- ity to represent change in many sent information (bits) through pix- ground and peripheral senses. material or physical properties. els on bit-mapped displays. These Tangible interfaces are at once Unlike with pixels on screens, it is graphical representations can an alternative and a complement difficult to change the form, posi- be manipulated through generic to graphical interfaces, represent- tion, or properties (e.g., color, size, remote controllers, such as mice, ing a new path to Mark Weiser’s stiffness) of physical objects in real touchscreens, and keyboards. By vision of ubiquitous computing time. This constraint can make the decoupling representation (pix- [3]. Weiser wrote of weaving digi- physical state of TUIs inconsistent els) from control (input devices), tal technology into the fabric of with underlying digital models. GUIs provide the malleability to physical environments and making Interactive surfaces is a prom- graphically mediate diverse digital computation invisible. Instead of ising approach to supporting information and operations. These melting pixels into the large and collaborative design and simula- graphical representations and small screens of devices around tion to support a variety of spa- “see, point, and click” interaction us, tangible design seeks an amal- tial applications (e.g., Urp [4], represented significant usability gam of thoughtfully designed profiled on page 41). This genre improvements over command interfaces embodied in different of TUI is also called “tabletop user interfaces (their predeces- materials and forms in the physi- TUI” or “tangible workbench.” sor), which required the user to cal world—soft and hard, robust On an augmented workbench, “remember and type” characters. and fragile, wearable and archi- discrete tangible objects are However powerful, GUIs are tectural, transient and enduring. manipulated, and their movements inconsistent with our interactions are sensed by the workbench. with the rest of the physical world. Limitations of Tangibles Visual feedback is provided onto Tangible interfaces take advantage Although the tangible representa- the surface of the workbench via of our haptic sense and our periph- tion allows the physical embodi- video projection, maintaining PAINTED TANGIBLE GUI BITS TUI BITS RADICAL ATOMS THE PHYSICAL WORLD THE DIGITAL WORLD a) A graphical user interface only lets b) A tangible user interface is like an iceberg: c) Radical Atoms is our vision for the future of users see digital information through a There is a portion of the digital that interaction with hypothetical dynamic screen, as if looking through the emerges beyond the surface of the water – materials, in which all digital information has surface of the water. We interact with into the physical realm – that acts as physical manifestation so that we can the forms below through remote physical manifestations of computation, interact directly with it – as if the iceberg controls such as a mouse, a keyboard, allowing us to directly interact with the "tip had risen from the depths to reveal its or a touchscreen. of the iceberg.” sunken mass. interactions January + February 2012 • Figure 1. Iceberg metaphor—from (a) GUI (painted bits) to (b) TUI (tangible bits) to (c) radical atoms. 40 CoVer storY input/output space coincidence. UrP: An ExamplE of An EArly TUI Tabletop TUIs utilize dynamic Urp uses physical scale models of architectural buildings to configure and representations such as video control an underlying urban simulation of shadow, light reflection, wind flow, projections, which accompany and other properties. Urp also provides a variety of interactive tools for query- tangibles in their same physical ing and controlling parameters of the urban simulation. These include a clock space to give dynamic expression to change the position of the sun, a material wand to change building surfaces between brick and glass (thus reflecting light), a compass to change wind of underlying digital informa- direction, and an anemometer to measure wind speed. tion and computation. We call Urp’s building models cast digital shadows onto the workbench surface (via it “digital shadow.” The graphi- video projection). The sun’s position in the sky can be controlled by turning cally mediated digital shadows the hands of a clock on the tabletop. The building models can be repositioned and reflections that accom- and reoriented, with their solar shadows transforming according to their pany physical building models spatial and temporal configuration. Changing the compass direction alters in Urp are such an example. the direction of a computational wind in the urban space. Urban planners can The success of a TUI often relies identify potential problems, such as areas of high pressure that may result in challenging walking environments or hard-to-open doors. Placing the an- on a balance and strong perceptual emometer on the tabletop shows the wind speed at that point in the model. coupling between tangible and intangible (dynamic) representa- tions. In many successful TUIs, it is critical that both tangible and intangible representations are perceptually coupled to achieve a seamless interface that actively mediates interaction with the underlying digital information and appropriately blurs the bound- ary between physical and digital. Coincidence of input and output spaces and real-time response are important elements toward accom- plishing this goal. Actuated and Kinetic Tangibles: From TuI Toward Radical Atoms Tangible interfaces are deeply concerned with the topic of rep- resentation that crosses physical and digital domains. If we rely too much on the digital shadow (intan- gible representation, such as video 2 012 projection onto the tabletops), it would look like an extended tabletop GUI with multiple point- Februar y ing devices or controllers on the + surface, and then it would lose the advantage of being tangible. The central characteristic of tangible interfaces is the coupling of tangibles (as representation and control) to underlying digital infor- • Urp: A workbench for urban planning and design. Physical building models casting mation and computational models. digital shadows responding to a clock tool that controls the time of the day (bottom One of the biggest challenges is to left). Wind flow simulations are controlled with a wind tool (bottom right). interactions January 41 CoVer storY Topobo keep the physical and digital states Topobo is a 3-D constructive assembly system with kinetic memory—the abil- in sync when the information ity to record and play back physical motion. Unique among modeling systems changes dynamically, either by is Topobo’s coincident physical input and output behaviors. By snapping users’ input (direct manipulation of together a combination of passive (static) and active (motorized) components, tangibles) or results of underlying people can quickly assemble dynamic biomorphic forms like animals and computation. Instead of relying on skeletons; animate those forms by pushing, pulling, and twisting them; and ob- the digital shadows (video projec- serve the system repeatedly play back those motions. For example, a dog can tions on the flat surfaces beneath be constructed and then taught to gesture and walk by twisting its body and legs. The dog will then repeat those movements and walk repeatedly. In the or behind tangibles), we have been same way that people can learn about static structures by playing with build- vigorously pushing the envelope ing blocks, they can learn about dynamic structures by playing with Topobo. of the atoms over the last decade beyond their current static and inert states to active and kinetic dimensions, using motors and gears, tiny robots, and shape-mem- ory alloys (SMAs) for prototyping. The evolution from static/inert to active/kinetic tangibles is illus- trated in Figure 2 [5].