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Fig. 8. Demonstration of the HI-Space system.
In a HI-Space system, the sensors (camera, radio frequency tagging antenna
and microphone array) are placed over the table to capture user interactions
with a table display. The display itself is a rear-view screen being fed by a stan-
dard LCD projector. The HI-Space creates an interaction space between the
sensor array and the 2D display surface, as depicted in Fig. 9. This creates a
3D interaction volume that allows the user a much greater degree of freedom
than in conventional systems. The system has the potential to interpret gestures
or actions anywhere in the interaction volume and respond accordingly, giving
the HI-Space much greater potential for advanced interactions than technologies
that only mimic touch screen type functionality. The emphasis of our research
has been the development of new interaction techniques and technologies as well
as creating the information workspace. Towards this objective, we are taking
advantage of technologies that are already in the mainstream pipeline, includ-
ing new projector technology, large-screen displays, and high-resolution cameras.
Battelle has a working proof-of-concept HI-Space system at its facilities [8] and
has a second system at the University of Washington's Human Interface Tech-
nology Laboratory (HITL) [9]. Other HI-Space systems are in use at other sites
around the USA (e.g. the GeoVISTA Center at Penn State [10]).
The core software of the HI-Space system is the underlying computer vision
library that takes incoming video images and recognizes two new classes of in-
put devices: pointers and objects. Pointers are anything that is reaching into
the interaction volume, for example, a hand or handheld stylus. An object is
something that has been placed on the display surface and left there. The use of
objects in video tracked systems has been discussed extensively under the topic
of tangible interfaces [11] and hand tracking has occurred in a variety of systems
[12-14]. HI-Space uniquely brings these and other functionality into a group en-
vironment where neither the user nor objects are instrumented or tethered in
any way. All tracking and recognition is from physical characteristics derived
only from the video camera. The system will track as many pointers and objects
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