Fifty years ago, when the mobile phones were not invented, talking to people residing elsewhere might have felt a work of magic, not logic. Although, connecting with remote people was made possible with beeper/pager texts, they never would have even dreamt of a voice communication. If somebody told them back then, that they could talk to people staying elsewhere, they would not have believed.
Here is the future of communication- the touch. We will soon be able to touch people without having to meet them. The inForm is a 3D rendering shape lift display with which you get to touch, move and shift things around physically. Apart from interacting with the Digital information it can also interact with the physical world within its boundary. The distant participants in a video conference can now interact with the sense of touch that feels very much real. However, this technology is just in its initial phase as the application domains for its very first project- the inFORM shape display has yet to be discovered.
The Geospatial data, is an area that is currently under work, it includes maps, GIS, terrain and the architectural models. Many urban planners, architects and designers with better 3D understanding is collaborating to share, discuss and produce their physical 3D designs. Additionally, inFORM allows, a low resolution physical-prototyping of the 3D design without 3D printing that is guaranteed to amaze the 3D designers and Modelers. The Volumetric Data cross sections like the CT scans and other medial imagings can also be viewed in 3D with the ability to interact physically.
This project sees bright future in the medical and surgical simulations. Previous researches on shape displays focused mainly on rendering content and user interface elements via shape output with no or less emphasis laid on the dynamically changing UIs. The inFORM unlike the traditional researches focuses on three primary objectives. Firstly, to facilitate media interaction by providing dynamic physical affordances through shape change, next is to restrict users by guiding through the dynamic physical constraints and finally to manipulate by actuating physical objects. Example applications are built that demonstrates novel interaction possibilities with dynamic affordances, constraints and object actuation.
