PingPongPlus: design of an athletic-tangible interface for computer-supported cooperative play

ABSTRACT

This paper introduces a novel interface for digitally-augmented cooperative play. We present the concept of the athletic-tangible interface, a new class of interaction which uses tangible objects and full-body motion in physical spaces with digital augmentation. We detail the implementation of PingPongPlus, a reactive ping-pong table, which features a novel sound-based ball tracking technology. The game is augmented and transformed with dynamic graphics and sound, determined by the position of impact, and the rhythm and style of play. A variety of different modes of play and initial experiences with PingPongPlus are also described.

REFERENCES

• 1: Azuma, R., A Survey of Augmented Reality, Presence, Vol. 6, No. 4, August 1997, pp. 355-385.
• 2: Chan, Y.T., A Simple and Efficient Estimator for Hyperbolic Location, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 42, No. 8, August 1994, pp. 1905- 1915.
• 3: Matthew G. Gorbet , Maggie Orth , Hiroshi Ishii, Triangles: tangible interface for manipulation and exploration of digital information topography, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.49-56, April 18-23, 1998, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/274644.274652]
• 4: Hiroshi Ishii, Reflections: “The last farewell”: traces of physical presence, interactions, v.5 n.4, p.56-ff., July/Aug. 1998 [doi>10.1145/278465.278474]
• 5: Hiroshi Ishii , Brygg Ullmer, Tangible bits: towards seamless interfaces between people, bits and atoms, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.234-241, March 22-27, 1997, Atlanta, Georgia, United States [doi>10.1145/258549.258715]
• 6: Jacobson, J., et al., The Last Book. IBM Systems Journal, Vol. 36, No. 3, 1997, pp. 457-463.
• 7: Krueger, M., Artificial Reality II, Addison-Wesley, 1990.
• 8: Steven Levy, Hackers: heroes of the computer revolution, Doubleday, New York, NY, 1984
• 9: Pattie Maes , Trevor Darrell , Bruce Blumberg , Alex Pentland, The ALIVE system: wireless, full-body interaction with autonomous agents, Multimedia Systems, v.5 n.2, p.105-112, March 1997 [doi>10.1007/s005300050046]
• 10: MacKenzie, C. and Iberall, T., The Grasping Hand, North-Holland, 1994.
• 11: Toshikazu Ohshima , Kiyohide Satoh , Hiroyuke Yamamoto , Hideyuki Tamura, AR² Hockey, ACM SIGGRAPH 98 Conference abstracts and applications, p.110, July 19-24, 1998, Orlando, Florida, United States [doi>10.1145/280953.281302]
• 12: Craig W. Reynolds, Flocks, herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model, Proceedings of the 14th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.25-34, August 1987
• 13: Howard Rheingold, Virtual reality, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, NY, 1991
• 14: Strang, G., Introduction to Applied Mathematics, Wellesley-Cambridge Press, 1986
• 15: Brygg Ullmer , Hiroshi Ishii, The metaDESK: models and prototypes for tangible user interfaces, Proceedings of the 10th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, p.223-232, October 14-17, 1997, Banff, Alberta, Canada [doi>10.1145/263407.263551]
• 16: Brygg Ullmer , Hiroshi Ishii , Dylan Glas, mediaBlocks: physical containers, transports, and controls for online media, Proceedings of the 25th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.379-386, July 1998 [doi>10.1145/280814.280940]
• 17: John Underkoffler , Hiroshi Ishii, Illuminating light: an optical design tool with a luminous-tangible interface, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.542-549, April 18-23, 1998, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/274644.274717]
• 18: Weiser, M. The Computer for the 21st Century. Scientific American, 1991, 265 (3), pp. 94-104.
• 19: Pierre Wellner , Wendy Mackay , Rich Gold, Back to the real world, Communications of the ACM, v.36 n.7, p.24-27, July 1993 [doi>10.1145/159544.159555]
• 20: Craig Wisneski, PingPongPlus, ACM SIGGRAPH 98 Conference abstracts and applications, p.111, July 19-24, 1998, Orlando, Florida, United States [doi>10.1145/280953.281304]
• 21: Craig Wisneski , Julian Orbanes , Hiroshi Ishii, PingPongPlus: augmentation and transformation of athletic interpersonal interaction, CHI 98 conference summary on Human factors in computing systems, p.327-328, April 18-23, 1998, Los Angeles, California, United States [doi>10.1145/286498.286797]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Computer-supported cooperative work

General Terms:
Design, Experimentation, Theory

Keywords:
athletic interaction, augmented reality, computer-supported cooperative play, enhanced reality, interactive surface, kinesthetic interaction, tangible interface