 Across the smooth wall of an obscure corridor, the artist conjures up symbols, shapes, animals, and portrays scenes from human activity. Â
This scene could have easily taken place in 15,000 BC on the
walls of the caves of Lascaux. Instead of using paint, the artist used animated
pictures on the walls of Emerging Technologies at the 2007
edition of Siggraph. From painting with hands on walls of a cave to
the future of work environments, one could say we are coming full
circle.
Â
 A
convergence of technologies years in the making gives hints to how
user interfaces may soon evolve, among other things, to make the
digital artistic experience something more visceral and personal.
Ideas and prototypes have been showcased for years in conferences
such as Siggraph, but only recently advances have renewed interest
and investment in this kind of research.Â
No need to go as far as the spectacular interface from
"Minority Report." The future may look a lot
more familiar.
Â
Imagine an electronic version of the classic drawing board used
by architects or engineers.
Â
The table would be touch sensitive, using multi touch technology
to easily navigate
through applications and tasks.
Â
No need to jump between a keyboard and graphic tablet…
Draw directly on the desk! Open up a virtual keyboard to type, or
simply handwrite your text and the computer would capture it for
you. For additional comfort, it is easy to imagine wireless devices
such as physical keyboards (if you miss the feeling of pressing
keys) or a collection of pens and brushes to increase
interaction. The
possibilities of devices go beyond simply reproducing traditional
tools – think painting with videos or scanning photographs by laying them out against the
desk. All this under your fingertips, while comfortably sitting at
your drawing board.
Â
 If
you need to share your work or discuss a project, simply
make the table horizontal
and work around a common
workspace.Â
If you want to watch a movie, just flip it vertically and use
it as a large, flat video display.
Â
When you are done, push it against the wall and turn it into a
digital painting or an ambient information display made of a collection of your favorite
news sources.
Â
Is it too far fetched ?
Â
Specialized prototypes already exist. The Cintiq display from Wacom
already allows you to draw
directly onto the screen and forget about a graphic tablet
altogether, but it is still a far cry from a completely integrated
computer drawing board.
Â
Closer to that vision, the Touch Table provides an integrated system for
manipulating geographic and security data. And to not leave this
concept into the hands of highly specialized applications,
Microsoft just recently unveiled their Surface multitouch system, with an impressive array of
applications for businesses, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants
and museums.
Â
All the elements are already here or just around the corner.
Hopefully, it is only a matter of time before you can replace your
old desktop PC and go back to your digital drawing board.
 All supporting images are
copyright, and cannot be
copied, printed, or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the artist.  Laurent
Alquier (agiel) has been moderator of the Vue Forum at
Renderosity since 2004. When he is not in the forum or the
galleries, he finds himself busy with the balancing act of a day
job as a Software Engineer and personal explorations of Information
Visualization and Computer Graphics. |
June 4, 2007
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