An Object-centric Interaction Framework for Tangible Interfaces in Virtual Environments (TUI-Framework)
The aim of this TUI-framework is to support the development of physically enriched VR applications. It focuses on the spatial and manipulative properties of tangible user interfaces (TUI-objects), leaving it to the application to implement interaction techniques, semantics and expressive physical/digital couplings.
On the programming side, the primary goals of the framework are the integration of a device abstraction layer, a lightweight application programming interface and full duplex communication between the TUI-application and interaction devices. The framework allows for a distributed system configuration and is highly customizable. Various virtual reality tracking frameworks and devices (e.g. VRPN, Ascension MotionStar, force-feedback devices) and physical toolkits (e.g. Phidgets) are already integrated. Further adapters can also easily be integrated.
The capabilities and flexibility of the framework are illustrated by some examples supplied along with the framework source code.
The concept of the framework and ways to include it in own applications are explained in
Israel, J. H., Belaifa, O., Gispen, A., & Stark, R. (2011). An Object-centric Interaction Framework for Tangible Interfaces in Virtual Environments. Fifth international conference on Tangible, embedded, and embodied interaction ACM TEI’11 (pp. 325–332). Fuchal, Portugal: ACM Press. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1935701.1935777
A video showing an example TUI-Server configuration (optical tracking and eye tracking) can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/embed/2Uq74gZKkA0?list=PL1Sfv6_XKslitnKci7wtCjlBMM5C9F5K5
For further information please contact oliver.belaifa@ipk.fraunhofer.de or johann.habakuk.israel@ipk.fraunhofer.de.
Copyright (C) 2010, 2011, 2012 The Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology IPK. All rights reserved.
This file is part of the TUIFramework library. It includes a software framework which contains common code providing generic functionality for developing applications with a tangible user interface (TUI). The TUIFramework library is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
The TUIFramework is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License along with the TUIFramework. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.