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an OLED TV of only 2 mm thickness [54]. Moreover, Sony [141] and Polymer
Vision [120] have presented displays that can be rolled. Recent research has even
used paper as the substrate of an electronic paper display. This is much thinner
than traditional electronic paper and more flexible and soft [54]. Such displays will
allow designers to develop applications that leverage the affordances of paper while
offering full digital feedback comparable to a screen.
2.1.6 Pen-and-Paper Toolkits
As Anoto pens are the currently most mature and most widely used solution for
realizing Pen-and-Paper Applications, we present some toolkits that ease developing
applications featuring the Anoto technology. All of these toolkits offer support for
establishing the low-level connection between the pen and a computing device and
for accessing the pen data. Some toolkits additionally provide higher-level support
for interpreting pen data.
Anoto SDK
Anoto offers commercial SDKs for developing Pen-and-Paper Applications with
Anoto pens. Only little information about the SDKs is made publicly available. For
guiding application developers, we outline core concepts of the Anoto SDKs.
Developers have to license some Anoto pattern space that can be used within
the application. The entire Anoto pattern space is large enough to cover a surface
equivalent to that of Europe and Asia combined. A license consists of a subregion of
that space. For instance, a “book” license is equivalent to 256 letter-size or A4-size
pages that each can be uniquely identified.
The Anoto pen delivers raw coordinates which describe a unique location in the
entire pattern space. In typical applications, these huge coordinates are quite cum-
bersome to handle. One is rather interested in coordinates that are relative to a given
document or a given page. The Anoto SDKs provide such higher-level abstractions
of the raw pen coordinates. For instance, it is easily possible to retrieve all traces
that were made on a specific page. The SDKs further allow application developers
to define interactive regions on document pages. For instance, a developer might
want to use a paper form in the application. This form might have some preprinted
areas into which the user can indicate some information, e.g. for the user's name and
address. In addition it might contain some boxes that the user can optionally check,
e.g. indicating if she wants to receive further information. All these areas can be
defined as interactive regions. On a technical level these are rectangular areas with
an associated identifier.
To define such interactive regions on paper products, Anoto offers the Form
Design Toolkit, a plug-in for Adobe Acrobat. This allows for defining interactive
regions and adding the Anoto pattern to any PDF document. However, the Form
