Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!agate!bionet!ig!arizona!gln
From: gln@arizona.edu (Gary L. Newell)
Newsgroups: comp.cog-eng
Subject: Re: Human Factors: Paper-Like Interface
Summary: parallax
Message-ID: <8719@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 15 Jan 89 22:10:49 GMT
References: <316@cui.UUCP> <2690009@hpdsla.HP.COM> <8710@megaron.arizona.edu> <911@scubed.UUCP>
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 22

In article <911@scubed.UUCP>, warner@s3snorkel.ARPA (Ken Warner) writes:
> >There has been quite a bit of work at IBM T.J. Watson Research in the last
> >two years on Gestural Interfaces. The use of a transparent tablet over a
> >flat display seems to be optimal for such a paper/pen like interface. It
> 
> What about the problem of paralax?  

Good question - it is a major problem, but one which it would seem might
be overcome with new hardware advances, in the not too distant future 
- but in the short term and in experimental work, it is a reasonable 
alternative to have the user indicate the angle of viewing (by touching 
three or more displayed points, for example) and use a linear transform 
for the electronic inking. Of course, this compensation goes out the window 
if the user moves......

I'm not too familiar with state of the art transparent tablets, but I know
that there are some in use that have a distance of 0.177 of an inch 
between the display plane and the stylus tip - if this distance is 
decreased even more, it would seem a viable input method.


		gary newell