DiamondSpin: an extensible toolkit for around-the-table interaction

DiamondSpin is a toolkit for the efficient prototyping of and experimentation with multi-person, concurrent interfaces for interactive shared displays. In this paper, we identify the fundamental functionality that tabletop user interfaces should embody, then present the toolkit's architecture and API. DiamondSpin provides a novel realtime polar to Cartesian transformation engine that has enabled new, around-the-table interaction metaphors to be implemented. DiamondSpin allows arbitrary document positioning and orientation on a tabletop surface. Polygonal tabletop layouts such as rectangular, octagonal, and circular tabletops can easily be constructed. DiamondSpin also supports multiple work areas within the same digital tabletop. Multi-user operations are offered through multithreaded input event streams, multiple active objects, and multiple concurrent menus. We also discuss insights on tabletop interaction issues we have observed from a set of applications built with DiamondSpi...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Chia Shen, Clifton Forlines, Frédéric Vernier, Meredith Ringel
• Keywords: CHI 2004, Human Computer Interaction, Polygonal Tabletop Layouts, Tabletop Interaction Issues, Tabletop User Interfaces