Soon, future tablets, smartphones and mobile devices may sport touchscreens that not only let you pinch and zoom, but also let you poke and stretch them as well.
The screen, which its creators described as 2.5-D instead of full 3-D, has a flexible liquid rubber sheet laid over actuators, and sits under a Kinect-based camera that projects images onto the sheet, Discovery News said.
“If you pull on it, the sheet makes a little mountain. Poke it and it dents. Rub your finger on it and it senses the friction. Stretch it and it shows the distortion on the image,” it said.
Discovery News said the camera also measures how deep the screen is poked into it or how far its stretched.
Appropriately, the device designed by Massachussetts Institute of Technology Media Lab’s Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley was named Obake – a mythical Japanese shapeshifting spirit.
Dand and Hemsley said today’s 3D displays are not true 3D but mere optical illusions.
“We created a 2.5D display that is shape changing with the help of actuators, depth cameras, projector and a silicone screen. ‘Obake’ (o-baa-keh) as we lovingly call it, imagines how we would interact with elastic display. We could literally pinch and pull them!” they said.
“Create mountains by pulling them out of the screen, draw rivers with your fingers, elevate an entire terrain to see a cut section view. Make your data come alive,” they added.
The two also said current state-of-the-art touchscreens still assume 2D images, while many 3D displays do not exploit the range of gestural controls.
Long way to go
But Discovery News noted it will take some time before this technology finds its way into a mobile device as small as a smartphone.
“Actuators are relatively large, and there would have to be room for pressing in as well as extruding, and the need for a projector. Odds are this technology will first show up on tabletop applications,” it said. — ELR, GMA News
from:NJYTOUCH
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