Tangible user interface

[1] This was first conceived by Radia Perlman as a new programming language that would teach much younger children similar to Logo, but using special "keyboards" and input devices.

The implemented TUIpist framework deploys arbitrary sensor technology for any type of application and actuators in distributed environments.

A 2017 white paper outlines the evolution of TUIs for touch table experiences and raises new possibilities for experimentation and development.

[12] In 1999, Gary Zalewski patented a system of moveable children's blocks containing sensors and displays for teaching spelling and sentence composition.

The MIT Tangible Media Group, headed by Hiroshi Ishi is continuously developing and experimenting with TUIs including many tabletop applications.

[14] The Urp[15] system and the more advanced Augmented Urban Planning Workbench[16] allow digital simulations of air flow, shadows, reflections, and other data based on the positions and orientations of physical models of buildings, on the table surface.

Physical objects allow positioning disasters by placing them on the interactive map and additionally tuning parameters (i.e. scale) using dials attached to them.

With the Reactable users can set up their own instrument interactively, by physically placing different objects (representing oscillators, filters, modulators...) and parametrise them by rotating and using touch-input.

Examples range from designing an own individual graphical layout for a snowboard or skateboard to studying the details of a wine in a restaurant by placing it on the table and navigating through menus via touch input.

Interactions such as the collaborative browsing of photographs from a handycam or cell phone that connects seamlessly once placed on the table are also supported.

Due to open source tracking technologies (reacTIVision[24]) and the ever-increasing computational power available to end-consumers, the required infrastructure is now accessible to almost everyone.

A standard PC, webcam, and some handicraft work allows individuals to set up tangible systems with a minimal programming and material effort.

[citation needed] It is difficult to keep track and overlook the rapidly growing number of all these systems and tools, but while many of them seem only to utilize the available technologies and are limited to initial experiments and tests with some basic ideas or just reproduce existing systems, a few of them open out into novel interfaces and interactions and are deployed in public space or embedded in art installations.

Another example of the many reacTIVision-based tabletops is ImpulsBauhaus-Interactive Table[27] and was on exhibition at the Bauhaus-University in Weimar marking the 90th anniversary of the establishment of Bauhaus.