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A visibility control system for collaborative digital table

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Abstract

We propose a novel display system that presents information with different levels of visibility to multiple users for enhancing collaborative multi-touch on digital tables by controlling visibility with a revolving polarizer. We first describe the system and its multiple variations and then present several example applications showing the technique’s benefits: the concealment and classification of information for specific users. We then describe an example of an entertainment application and a tangible-polarizer on display. In addition, we conduct experiments to learn the variations of visibilities depending on the conditions for investigating application feasibilities. Finally, we discuss the future extensions of the configuration, its potential, and its limitations. The following are the main contributions of this paper: (1) the discussion and clarification of the importance for multi-visibility with multi-touch, (2) the proposal of our multi-visibility system and its usage, (3) the verification of multi-visibility control through experiments.

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Acknowledgment

This research was supported in part by the “Global COE (Centers of Excellence) Program” of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Interface Engineering Laboratory, Osaka University, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871, Japan

    Satoshi Sakurai, Yoshifumi Kitamura & Fumio Kishino

  2. Department of Computer Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 1UB, UK

    Sriram Subramanian

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  1. Satoshi Sakurai
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  2. Yoshifumi Kitamura
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  3. Sriram Subramanian
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  4. Fumio Kishino
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Correspondence to Satoshi Sakurai.

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Sakurai, S., Kitamura, Y., Subramanian, S. et al. A visibility control system for collaborative digital table. Pers Ubiquit Comput 13, 619–632 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-009-0243-6

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