Mathieu Le Goc

Stanford University | SU · Department of Mechanical Engineering

Physical manipulation is a key part of externalizing representations of knowledge and the creative process. However, contemporary tools for remote collaboration ignore physical manipulation and the haptic modality. We are interested in exploring remote physical manipulation in the context of ideation and brainstorming. Augmented Reality provides mu...

While many systems have been designed to support collaboration around visual thinking tools, much less work has investigated how to share and collaboratively design physical prototypes—an important part of the design process. We describe preliminary results from a formative study on how designers communicate and collaborate in design meetings aroun...

This paper introduces dynamic composite physicalizations , a new class of physical visualizations that use collections of self-propelled objects to represent data. Dynamic composite physicalizations can be used both to give physical form to well-known interactive visualization techniques, and to explore new visualizations and interaction paradigm...

Passive haptic proxy objects allow for rich tangible interaction, and this is especially true in VR applications. However, this requires users to have many physical objects at hand. Our paper proposes robotic assembly at run-time of low-resolution haptic proxies for tangible interaction and virtual reality. These assembled physical proxy objects ar...

We present a first prototype of an open-ended interactive physical game aiming at developing children’s understanding of dynamic systems in a playful and embodied way. We use a swarm user interface, Zooids, developed by Le Goc et al., made of independent self-propelled elements that move collectively and react to user input. Papert promoted an acti...

In this dissertation, I present my work aiming at making tangible user interfaces more versatile with a higher degree of physicality, in order to bridge the gap between digital and physical worlds. To this end, I study and design systems which support interaction with digital information while better leveraging human hand capabilities. I start with...

This paper introduces swarm user interfaces, a new class of human-computer interfaces comprised of many autonomous robots that handle both display and interaction. We describe the design of Zooids, an open-source open-hardware platform for developing tabletop swarm interfaces. The platform consists of a collection of custom-designed wheeled micro r...

We introduce a novel method based on physical proxies for investigating fundamental differences between touch and tangible interfaces. This method uses physical chips to emulate the flat, non-graspable objects that make up touch interfaces, in a way that supports direct comparison with tangible interfaces. We ran an experiment to test the effect of...

" SmartTokens are small-sized tangible tokens that can sense multiple types of motion, multiple types of touch/grip, and send input events wirelessly as state-machine transitions. By providing an open platform for embedding basic sensing capabilities within small form-factors, SmartTokens extend the design space of tangible user interfaces. We desc...

We contribute a thin, transparent, and low-cost design for electric field sensing, allowing for 3D finger and hand tracking and gestures on mobile devices. Our approach requires no direct instrumentation of the hand or body, and is non-optical, allowing for a compact form-factor that is resilient to ambient illumination. Our simple driver electroni...

Revel is a new wearable tactile technology that modifies the user's tactile perception of the physical world. Current tactile technologies enhance objects and devices with various actuators to create rich tactile sensations, limiting the experience to the interaction with instrumented devices. In contrast, REVEL can add artificial tactile sensation...

Augmented Reality has recently emerged as one of the key application areas of interactive computer graphics and is rapidly expanding from research laboratories into everyday use. The fundamental premise of AR is to enable us to interact with virtual objects immediately and directly, seeing, feeling and manipulating them just as we do physical objec...