InteracTable®

The InteracTable is the first in a series of information devices that investigates general shapes and orientations of interaction areas. It is designed for display, discussion, and annotation of information objects by a group of two to six people sitting or standing around the table.

The current stand-up version of the InteracTable is built as a vertical rear-projection unit with a touch-sensitive display surface. Inside the table, an LCD beamer projects a high-resolution image of 1024x768 pixels to the top of the table. The integrated wireless network provides the InteracTable with a high degree of flexibility.

Since a round or oval-type display has no selected orientation as, e.g., top and bottom and left and right at the desktop computer, one has to provide new means of interaction. Information objects displayed on the table have to be rotated and shuffled across the surface in correspondence to different view perspectives of the users standing or sitting around the table. Manipulation is done by gestures using fingers or pens, annotations by voice and/or pen. In addition, an infrared keyboard is available for more extensive text-entry tasks.

2nd Generation

The new InteracTable® is 90 cm high with a display size of 70 cm x 125 cm. The horizontal workspace is realized with a touch-sensitive plasma-display (PDP) which is integrated into the table top of the InteracTable. People can use pens and fingers for gesture-based interaction with information objects. The IT components are mounted below. The margin of the table surface can be used to lean on it and to place additional material or coffee cups and the like.

Related Publications:
N. A. Streitz, P. Tandler, C. Müller-Tomfelde, S. Konomi
Roomware: Towards the Next Generation of Human-Computer Interaction based on an Integrated Design of Real and Virtual Worlds.
In: J. Carroll (Ed.): Human-Computer Interaction in the New Millenium, Addison-Wesley, 2001. pp. 553-578.

Streitz, N.A., Geißler, J., Holmer, T., Konomi, S., Müller-Tomfelde, C., Reischl, W., Rexroth, P., Seitz, P., and Steinmetz, R.
i-LAND: An interactive Landscape for Creativitiy and Innovation
Published in: ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '99) , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., May 15-20, 1999.
ACM Press, New York, pp. 120-127.
Please click here to download the full paper (pdf file).

Streitz, N.A., Geißler, J., Holmer, T..
Roomware® for Cooperative Buildings: Integrated Design of Architectural Spaces and Information Spaces.
In N. Streitz, S. Konomi, H. Burkhardt (Eds.), Cooperative Buildings - Integrating Information, Organization, and Architecture. Proceedings of CoBuild98, Darmstadt, Germany.
Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 1370. Springer: Heidelberg, 1998, pp. 4-21.

Contact Person:
Dr. Dr. Norbert Streitz( )