“Bloxels: Glowing Blocks as Volumetric Pixels” by Lee, Kakehi and Naemura

  • ©Jinha Lee, Yasuaki Kakehi, and Takeshi Naemura

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Entry Number: 06

Title:


    Bloxels: Glowing Blocks as Volumetric Pixels

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    In this paper, we propose a novel block-shaped tangible interface named Bloxel (see Figure 1). A Bloxel is a translucent cubical block that glows in full color and communicates with the neighboring Bloxels through high-speed flickers.

    Our significant accomplishment is that users can build displays with a variety of shapes by stacking hundreds of Bloxels on a tabletop surface. Each Bloxel obtains its color data from the lower Bloxel through infra-red high-speed flickers, and transfers a series of color data to the upper Bloxel. In this way, Bloxels serve as volumetric pixels which can display meaningful content as a whole. With our module-based approach, we introduce a ground-breaking display technology. Moreover, as an augmented version of children’s block play, Bloxels will have a significant novel impact on the field of physical computing and tangible interfaces.


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    References

    DUNN, H. N., NAKANO, H., AND GIBSON, J. 2003. Block jam: A tangible interface for interactive music. In NIME2003, pp. 170–177.

    KIMURA, S., OGUCHI, R., TANIDA, H., KAKEHI, Y., TAKAHASHI, K., AND NAEMURA, T. 2008. Pvlc projector: Image projection with imperceptible pixel-level metadata. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2008 Posters, B177.

    SHARLIN, E., ITOH, Y., WATSON, B., KITAMURA, Y., LIU, L., AND SUTPHEN, S. 2002. Cognitive cubes: a tangible user interface for cognitive assessment. In ACM SIGCHI 2002, pp. 347– 354.


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©Jinha Lee, Yasuaki Kakehi, and Takeshi Naemura ©Jinha Lee, Yasuaki Kakehi, and Takeshi Naemura

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