A Short History of Tabletop Research, Technologies and Products

A Short History of Tabletop Research, 

Technologies and Products 

Christian Müller-Tomfelde and Morten Fjeld 

July 2011

Overview 

• Introduction 

• What are tabletops 

• Research domains and communities 

• Review of 

• Landmark research 

• Enabling technologies 

• Commercially available products 

• Analysis 

• Three key transitions 

• Synoptic landscape 

• Springer book in the HCI Series: 

Tabletops - Horizontal interactive Displays 

CSIRO - Christian Müller-Tomfelde - A Short History of Tabletop Research, Technologies and Products 2

What are Tabletops 

• Computer interface stands in the tradition of earlier 

terms, such as desktops and laptops. 

• The term was first used in 2001 

• Tabletops are suitable as 

• Interfaces for small groups, with a 

• Common shared orientation-free workspace and the 

• Affordance of placing objects on them. 

• Allowing new forms of 

• hand and gesture interaction, 

• tangible interaction, and 

• novel interactive visualizations. 


Tabletops Research Motivation 

• Tabletop interfaces rely on users’ mental models of 

traditional tables. 

• Users combine the advantages of the physical 

environment with the possibilities of the digital 

information space - hybrid environment. 

• Understanding a tabletop as a mere surface with 

electronic sheets of paper is an inadequate. 

• Researchers and application designers are tempted 

to transcend this traditional user perception 

• Take advantage of the possibilities that make 

interactive tabletops unique and fascinating. 


Tabletop Research Domains 

CSCW 

UbiComp 

HCI 


Top-ten Tabletop Landmark Publications 

Based on Google Scholar, August 2009 (http://www.harzing.com/pop.htm) 


DigitalDesk (1992) 

• Pierre Wellner’s version of 

an augmented desktop for 

individuals 

• Data projection and image 

capturing 

• Computer vision based 

finger tracking 

• Digital calculator 

applications 

Wellner P (1993) Interacting with paper on the DigitalDesk. 

Communications of the ACM 36(7):87–96 


Active Desk (1995) 

• Prototype developed as part of 

the Ontario Telepresence Project 

• Back projection and cable-based 

tracking system 

• Deliberate design as an 

“Electronic drafting table” with a 

30 degrees tilt 

• Introduction of “graspable 

interfaces” or later Tangible User 

Interfaces 

Fitzmaurice GW, Ishii H, Buxton WAS (1995) Bricks: laying the 

foundations for graspable user interfaces. In: Proc CHI ’95, pp 442–449 


DiamondTouch (2001) 

• First multi-touch and multi-user 

interaction technology 

• Developed in the MERLabs 

• Often used in collaboration study 

• Commercialized by Circle Twelve 

in 2009 

• Draw-back: top projection and 

“capacitively coupled antennas” 

Dietz P, Leigh D (2001) DiamondTouch: A multi-user touch technology. In: 

Proc. UIST ’01, pp 219–226 


Conference Publication Activity 

Index based on Lucene indexing and retrieval engine 


Enabling Technologies 

• Enabling technologies for tabletop systems can be 

identified in the areas of 

touch, display, and software technologies 

• Early research systems used a large variety of 

general-purpose technology 

• technologies were further refined and 

• adopted from other domains. 

• Key performance criteria of touch technologies are: 

• applicability to large display space (> 40 in or 102 cm) 

• reliable real-time multi-user touch capability 

• low spatial requirements when integrating direct-touch 

devices into displays 


Example: The InteracTable 

• part of the i-LAND 

project in 1999 

• a single touch 

interactive 

• double-mirrored rear 

projection 

• 1024 by 768 pixel 

display 

• Second version with a 

plasma display panel 

2001 


Display technologies comparison 

Godlewski J, Obarowska M (2007) Organic light emitting devices. Opto- 

Electronics Review 15(4):179––183 


OLED Technologies (organic light-emitting diode) 

http://www.holstcentre.com/Home/PartneringinResearch/SharedPrograms/TechnologyIntegration/Displays.aspx 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:OLED_EarlyProduct.JPG 

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/gadgetbox/lg-finally-selling-first-large-screen-oled-hdtv-10-000-1C7776739 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Ecran_oled_flexible.jpg 

Müller-Tomfelde and Fjeld - A Short History of Tabletop Research, Technologies and Products 14

Tabletop Software 

• Flexible display software 

• Rotating display areas on tabletops 

• UI customization for direct-touch and gestures 

• Groupware widgets 

• Multi-input and multi-user events 

• Integration into the operating system 

• Reliable multi-event processing 

• Support of native multi-input and legacy applications 

• Multi-touch OS extensions 

• Windows 7 

• On the wish list: “Ubuntu MT Edition” 


Commercial Tabletop Products 

• Example can be found in the past ten to fifteen 

years, but they have not yet reached the mass 

market. 

• Early efforts and initiatives 

• by small enterprises in cooperation 

• with research organizations or initiatives. 

• Only recently have larger companies engaged 

themselves with interactive tabletops and developed 

products for the 

• entertainment, 

• education, and 

• domestic domains. 


Example: Active Desk 

Ontario Telepresence Project (1992-1994) 

• OTP was a Canadian research program for 

academic and industry studies into 

• “sociological issues associated with the deployment of 

computer and video supported cooperative work 

systems.” 

• Among other results, the Active Desk was designed 

jointly by the OTP and a Toronto based company 

called Arnott Design Group. 

• Out of the Arnott Design Group’s work grew another 

Toronto based company called Input Technology 

Inc. (ITI). 

• metaDESK by Ullmer and Ishii built upon ITI’s 

Visionmaker product. 


Other Examples 

• In 2001 a Germany-based company Wilkhahn 

started to distribute the InteracTable, 

• An office table based on 

SMART Boards technologies 

• Outcome of a joint research and 

industry collaboration in 1999. 

• Mitsubishi DiamondTouch 

• Prototype in 2001, used often in academic research 

• Commercial product in 2009 (Circle Twelve) 

• “Turn-key” solutions (2007) 

• The SMART Table Model 230i 

• Microsoft Surface 


Further Commercial Products 

• reacTable* (2005) 

• tangible tabletop interface to 

• control synthesizer software for 

live performances 

• PerceptivePixel (2005) 

• Jeff Han presented a multi-touch 

technology that was very 

inspiring and heavily 

broadcasted in 2006. 

• Multi-Touch Collaboration Wall 

for use in broadcasting and 

medical visualization. 


Further Commercial Products con’d 

• MultiTouch (2008) 

• The Helsinki-based spin off company, 

Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, 

• first commercially available multi-touch 

device integrated into a large LCD. 

• FlatFrog (2008) 

• A Swedish company introduced a multitouch 

device based on a patented 

technology. 

• Close integration into LCD may allow the 

construction of a significantly less bulky 

device. 

• http://flatfrog.com/media/FlatFrog_Multitouch_3200_EN_120912.pdf 


Recent Commercial Product 

• Microsoft Surface 2 

• Surface 2.0 Debut at the 2011 

Consumer Electronic Show 

• In cooperation with 

Samsung SUR40 

• Key Features: 

• IR sensor integrated 

into the LCD PixelSense 

• 40 inch diagonal 

• 1920x 1080 pixels 

• Depth of 4 inch 


Analysis: Key Transitions 

• We understand a transition as an abstract shift 

• From the prevailing approach or paradigm 

• To a new one. 

• We identify and trace three such key transitions. 

1. From lab prototypes (1998) 

to real world collaborative applications 

2. From single touch (2001) 

to multi-touch and tangibility 

3. From projection (2008) 

to direct display technology 


Analysis: Synoptic Landscape 

• We synthesize historical information into a synoptic 

landscape including 

• research highlights, 

• enabling technologies, 

• prototypes, and products. 

• On top of this landscape, we point out and trace 

• innovations and 

• landmark research 

• as they stimulated and triggered three key 

transitions in research and technology. 


Synoptic Landscape 

CSIRO. Insert presentation title, do not remove CSIRO from start of footer









Tabletop Hype cycle 


Tabletop Book at Springer HCI Series 

• Facts about the book 

• 18 chapter contributions 

• Over 50 international authors 

• Foreword from Norbert Streitz: 

• From Furniture to Interaction Substrate 

• Over 450 pages with various figures 

• Book has three main parts: 

• Under, 

• On and Above, and 

• Around and Beyond Tabletops 


Book Part 1: Under Tabletops 

• Hardware/ Software and Computer Science 

• The positioning of the chapters topics under 

tabletops may not be taken too literally. 

• In a boarder sense the chapters of this part refer to 

topics “hidden from and invisible to the user” and to 

core tabletop technology. 

• The part introduces 

• basic technical topics and 

• provides a system classification as well as 

• more specific aspects such as high-resolution and 

object recognition. 


Book Part 2: On and Above Tabletops 

• Human Computer Interaction 

• On tabletops refers to interactions on the surface, 

namely by 

• direct touch input, and 

• gestures, 

• mediating tangible objects. 


• Tangibility for interactive surfaces 

• Interaction styles and basic tabletop actions 

• Fundamental limitations of direct touch interaction 

• 3D tabletop systems. 


Book Part 3: Around and Beyond Tabletops 

• Computer Supported Cooperative Work 

• The typical group around a tabletop setting is 

• Small in size, 

• Around a common workspace and can also become 

• Distributed in scenarios of beyond tabletops. 


• Interaction techniques for groups and file access 

• The concept of spatial territories 

• Tabletop systems in work and public environments 

• Shared remote tabletops and distributed assemblies 


ICT-Centre 

Information Engineering Laboratory 

Christian Müller-Tomfelde 

Research Scientist 

Phone: 02 9372 4552 

Email: Christian.Mueller-Tomfelde@csiro.au 

Web: www.ict.csiro.au 

Thank you 

Contact Us 

Phone: 1300 363 400 or +61 3 9545 2176 

Email: enquiries@csiro.au Web: www.csiro.au

A Short History of Tabletop Research, Technologies and Products

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