Mouse 2.0: Multi-touch Meets the Mouse

Nicolas Villar, et. al., Microsoft Research

Summary

This paper evaluates some of the different ways in which multi-touch capabilities might be introduced in conventional mice-like devices.

Details

Clearly, multi-touch (MT) is here to stay and maps well with naturally dexterous hands. The authors perform technical design space exploration for five different MT mice. While lots of design modifications have been proposed for conventional 2-button mice, most of them have relied on single point interaction. MT techniques using vertical display or touchpad often face problems in precision and occlusion.

Five different MT mice explored include:

• FTIR (frustrated total internal reflection) : An IR camera images hand gestures on an indirect input device augmented with a regular mouse sensor. Faces limitations in area available for MT gestures.
• Cap (capacitive) : uses a matrix of capacitive sensors to track MT points. While providing a lower resolution than optics based approaches, it provides true MT sensing and compact form factor.
• Arty (articulated) : uses three IR sensors under pal, thumb and index finger to provide a very high sensing fidelity.
• Orb : As the name says, a hemispherical surface is IR imaged under internal IR illumination. The surface is ‘clickable’. While a great surface for MT, the camera image off the reflector needs un-distorting by using a vision pipeline.
• Side : uses proximity sensing to track MT gestures around the mouse. It uses an IR scheme as in Orb and hence also needs a vision pipeline. MT sensing can occur over larger areas.

User observations reported Arty as the favourite  MT mice due to its high precision. Orb mouse was next most popular due to its form factor. All users could use MT mice in their regular tasks. Side mouse seemed to be a problem with different hand sizes while side and FTIR seemed to be bimodal in nature for MT vs. clicking.

Review

A very interesting paper, it was enlightening as well as refreshing to see different MT techniques being explored with their pros and cons.

Disclaimer

The work discussed above is an original work presented at UIST 2009 by the authors/affiliations indicated at the starting of this post. This post in itself was created as part of course requirement of CPSC 436.