Lightweight Capacitance-based Block System for 3D Space Interaction

Capacitive Blocks is a block-shaped tangible user interface that connects the physical space to the virtual space, allowing users to build 3D models in the virtual space by handling tangible blocks. The system counts the number of stacked blocks by measuring the capacitance with a capacitance meter; the system recognizes the structure of stacked blocks arranged in a grid using the capacitance meter and generates 3D models. In this study, we improved the stability of Capacitive Blocks, presented by Yoshida et al. at UIST ‘15, by revising the block design: each block of the new system has a built-in capacitor. To evaluate the improvement, we conducted an experiment. The result showed a counting accuracy of 96.5%.

In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces (ISS 2016)