IEEE Paper

The Design of a Touchable Table Prototype A. Al-Jumah1, K. Hamad2, A. Al-Hosainan3, A. Talaat4, S. E. Esmaeili5

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

American University of Kuwait


Salmiya, Kuwait
 Email: {S000294941, S000314622, S000312883, S000265114, sesmaeili5}@auk.edu.kw

Abstract - Innovation has turned out to be so useful to our

lives in such huge numbers of ways. Innovation is advantageous

and effective. Shape changing interfaces give physical shapes to

advanced information so clients can feel and control information

with their hands and bodies. Our approach is to construct an

insightful model for the properties of deformable materials.

Office desks have been created and have been used since quite a

while. The most well-known viewpoint about these office work

areas is that every one of them are nearly the same, much the

same as a consistent table. The proposed Touchable Table is the

perfect arrangement that will influence work areas. It can speak

with the client in different diverse ways. It is an extraordinary

advancement for a work area as it influences the client to feel

more relaxed, inventive, and stimulated. Subsequently, the

proposed table has the capacity to hold anything that drifts over

it and thus, the user will never need to stress over purchasing

any stands. The proposed touchable table will help in reducing

some of the health issues triggered by the use of an old-fashioned

office desk. In addition, the proposed table is capable of creating

various types of 3D shapes as well as to moving the objects

around. Furthermore, the proposed Touchable Table comes

with a user-friendly application and can adjust itself based on

the user’s preference of the office style.

Keywords - Power Fader, Motor Driver, Micro-Controller.

I. INTRODUCTION

Industrial productions and robotics have been around

since many years. We have seen several types of industrial

applications in factories that can assemble specific products,

machines, or even food. For instance, BMW factory used

automotive robotic arms and other complex machines to

assemble different components of cars [1]. All kinds of

modern industry, nowadays, have complex robotics

machinery to process their production lines. Therefore, we

can perceive that there are many creative and inspiring

innovations that will be invented in the near future.

Office disks have been crafted and been in use since a very

long time. The most common aspect about these office desks

is that all of them are almost the same, just like a regular table

but much fancier to work on. There are many cases that makes

an office desk not as well-heeled as it looks. One of the issues

is that when the user sits on the chair and starts working on a

laptop or a computer in a horizontal surface for a long period

of time, it may cause some health issues for example, spinal

pain. Another problem that the user might face is to move

some objects closer or farther from the working space. Hence,

in that case, the user will have to get up and reorganize the

working area. Moreover, in order for every desk to look more

organized, it has to have pen and pencil cases, photo frames,

clocks, etc. which might make the desk somehow crowded.

Sometimes people like to view new themes for their desks

every day in order to feel more motivated towards their jobs.

For instance, some would like to change the color of their

desks or the layout of the desk in some situations.

The proposed Touchable Table is the ideal solution that

will make the desk a more interesting working space. It has

the ability to communicate with the user in various different

ways. In terms of comfortability, the user will be able to

adjust the laptop in such a way that it will make them feel at

ease while sitting in their own posture. For example, when the

user hovers the laptop over the table, the sticks of the table

will move up until it touches the laptop and then the sticks

will hold their position, to adjust to the laptop’s inclined level.

As a result, this table will be able to hold anything that hovers

over it in that manner and hence, the user will never need to

worry about buying any stands whether if it was for photo

frames or tablets. When it comes to the workspace, the users

can use the table to draw mathematical graphs. This will

enable the users to observe the graph plotted in three-

dimensional space and hold an easy and better understanding

for math operations. In addition, the Touchable Table can be

connected synchronously to another table, which is a feature

that can be used in the architectural fields. Therefore, if two

users have Touchable tables, they will be able to connect

them in such a way that it will make both the tables have the

same shape of the designed architecture. In addition, if one of

the users changes the shape of their table, it will automatically

change on the other side as well.

Section II includes related works and literature review.

Section III presents the design and analysis of the system, its

architecture, and the components used. The implementation

of the prototype is shown in Section IV and the conclusion of

the paper is given in section V.

II. LITRETURE REVIEW

The paper presented in [2] explores the hybrid of a 3D user

interfaces and introduces disposition and sublimation as

transition metaphors between the virtual and physical states.

With a view of exploring the space of physical/virtual state

transitions, the authors have designed two implementations

of a system they referred to as Sublimate that combined

actuated shape displays with spatial Augmented Reality

(AR). The first setup used a combination of an optical see-

through AR display, acrylic beam-splitter, a physical 2.5D

surface, a shape display to co-locate three-dimensional virtual

graphics, and a stereo display. The 2.5D is the ability to

perceive the physical environment which allows for

understanding of the relationship between the objects and our

self within an environment. The second setup used tablet-

based video see-through AR display to augment virtual

graphics to the scene. Both systems permitted the direct

interaction from the user via mid-air interactions with a

comprehensive physical manipulation and a wand of the

shape displayed.

Recompose Model was designed and built upon the earlier

Relief Model developed by Leithinger and Ishii [3]. In the

same manner as done in [3], Blackshaw et al [4] table

consisted of an array of 120 autonomously addressable pins

whose heights could be read back and actuated simultaneous-

ly. This permitted the user to utilize the pins as both input and

output. Building upon the model, the authors improved the

design by mounting a depth camera above the table-top

surface. They were able to gain access to the depth

information and detect the basic gestures the user made. With

a view of providing visual feedback, related to interaction of

the user, the authors mounted a projector above the table and

calibrated it to coincide with the depth camera. They then

used computer visualization to recognize and determine the

position, height and orientation of hands and fingers to

identify gestural input.

In coming up with their model, Blackshaw et al. [4]

combined models from platforms of a number of previous

designs. Foremost, the authors considered Illuminating Clay

Model proposed in [5]. The model explores computational

analysis of 3D models through creation of images of the

topographical state of physical objects. Illuminating Clay

Model exemplifies the power of repainting malleable devices

using projected data. This involves instantaneous feedback

loop between the digital and physical alterations analyses.

The interface permits the user to analyze and explore free

form spatial models. The authors further reiterate that using

the platform, it is possible to explore the domain of landscape

design in cases where the correlation between the

computational simulations and form is relevant. In the

Illuminating Clay Model, landscape models are created using

a ductile clay support. It involves the capturing of 3D

geometry in real-time via laser scanner. From the captured

images, simulations such as land erosion, shadow casting and

travelling time are computed. Results of these calculations are

then projected back to the clay model; thus, combining the

advantages of interaction of the physical object with other

dynamic qualities of graphical display [5].

Project FEELEX shown in [6] had the goal to offer users

the opportunity to experience spatially continuous surface

upon which they can touch an image with any part of their

naked hands, including their palm. The authors also had the

goal of representing visual and hepatic sensation concurrently

using one device that does not place the user under any

obligation to wear any extra equipment. To achieve their

goals, the authors designed a new interface device that

included a projector, a flexible screen and an actuator array.

During the project, the they were able to show that the

actuator deformed the flexible screen onto which the image

was projected. It gave the user the opportunity to touch the

image directly and to feel its rigidity and shape.

The authors in [7] considered the circumstances that could

cause physical objects to change shape and the kinds of

interactions and applications that could become possible for

the physical objects to dynamically deform and alter their

appearance in response to actions of users. The authors came

up with Lumen; creating and investigating an interactive

device with the capacity to dynamically change its shape with

a view of communicating information to users. It uses

interfaces that can be perceived as extensions of traditional

two-dimensional bit-mapped RGB displays. In this case, each

pixel exhibits height as an additional attribute. Generally,

Lumen is an interactive display which presents physical and

visual moving shapes that move both autonomously or with

manipulation. The model leads to the creation of smooth,

organic physical motions that offer esthetically appealing and

calm displays for ambient computing environments [7]. Users

have the capacity to interact with Lumen directly and form

images and shapes with their bare hands.

III. DESIGN APPROACH

In this section, we will demonstrate how we approached our design. The system architecture and the components used are also described.

A. System Architecture:

The system architecture shown in Figure 1 presents the

4x4 unit system where the Arduino microcontroller is

connected to the PC USB port. Then, Eight L298N motor

drivers are connected to the Arduino microcontroller. Next,

these motor drivers are powered by a 12V battery and their

outputs are connected to the power faders. Each motor driver

can control 2 power fader DC motors.

Fig. 1. System architecture

B. System Design:

Figures 2 shows the wooden case used to create one

single 4x4 unit system, which consists of 16 motorized slide

potentiometers that will shape in a 8x8 matrix respectively.

Fig. 2. Four connected 4x4 units

C. Components:

A brief description for the components cost and the

number of units that were needed is provided in Table I.

TABLE I. COMPONENTS COST

Component Number of

pieces needed Cost ($)

Motorized Slide Potentiometer 80 1848

ATMEGA2560 4 178

L298N Motor Driver 32 290

Plastic Sticks 80 102

Custom Table Design 7 231

Plastic Tube 200 66

Wires/Cables - 165

Utilities - 990

Screw/pins 100 66

Other expenses (Wooden

Figure)

- 495

Total ($) 4431

IV. IMPELEMENTATION

The implementation section describes the prototype and the connections between the components in the proposed Touchable Table prototype.

A. Flow Chart:

The system flow chart is presented in Figure 3. When the

user runs the program, he or she has to choose the method that

is required by sending the character that operates a specific

method. For example, if the user wants to use a mobile stand,

the user will have to input the ‘M’ character to the Serial port.

Then, the mobile stand method will run. After that char s will

read the Serial and then it will meet the condition if s= ‘s’. if

that condition was false the loop will jump back up to the

mobile stand method in order to keep the power faders in their

exact position. The loop will keep on working until the user

sends the character ‘s’ to the Serial port and the loop will

break. Finally, the code will go back up to check for a new

value for the method character and the same will happen to

all of the methods.

Fig. 3. System flow chart

B. Data Flow Diagram:

Fig. 4. Data flow diagram Level 1

Level 1 consists of more details about major processes and

their sub-process. Moreover, it identifies the data files that are

being used into the major processors as figure 4 shows. For

example, when the user requests any of the methods

available, the data will flow into the Serial process and it will

redirect it to the requested method to execute it and then the

data will transfer back to the Serial to the Table. In our

system, we used data files for some of the processes to have

the option to memorize the shape that has been designed.

C. Hardware Implementation:

Using the wooden and electrical components discussed

earlier, we mounted the motorized slide potentiometers onto

the wooden bar using a strong double-faced tape and soldered

the wires on the motors of the power faders. Next, we

measured the length of the wires so that they can reach the

outputs of the motor drivers. The motor drivers were mounted

using screws on the wooden panel as shown in Figure 5.

Fig. 5. Project prototype

D. Software Implementation:

Fig. 6. Graphical User Interface

The GUI contains click buttons that can achieve a specific

method. For instance, when the CUSTOM SHAPE button is

clicked by the user, the Click event will send out the character

‘A’ to the Serial port. Then the Arduino will read the

character from the Serial port and apply the method

CUSTOM SHAPE to the Arduino. The text field informs the

user about the condition of the Arduino and the method that

running as shown in Figure 6. In order to stop the method

from operating, the user will have to click the STOP button,

which will send out the character ‘s’ to the Serial port and the

Arduino will read it and stop the method. Then, the Arduino

will wait for a command of another method to be executed.

E. Object Recognition:

To make the object recognition applicable, the Kinect

Xbox camera was used.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

2 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

3 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

4 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

5 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

6 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

7 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Fig. 7. Camera pixels

In Figure 7, the red numbers represent the pixels of the

camera that are shown in the camera window. The blue

numbers represent the rows and columns (x & y) of the pixels.

All the pixels, which are the red numbers, are stored in an

array list. Now let us say that we want to choose a specific

pixel, for example pixel number 13 from the figure. We will

have to use this equation in order to locate it:

𝑃𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 = 𝑥 + (𝑦 ∗ 𝑤𝑖𝑑𝑡ℎ) (1)

Where x represents the column, y the row, and the width is 8.

When applying the equation:

𝑃𝑖𝑥𝑒𝑙 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟 = 5 + (1 ∗ 8) = 13 (2)

13 is the pixel number in the array list. Thus, from this

equation we can detect any object location on the tangible

table by using the pixels and the change of the grey scale color

in the camera window.

Fig. 8. Processing software (Kinect camera object program)

When an object is placed in front of the camera, the grey scale

of the pixel will become lighter and lighter as the object gets

closer to the camera until the whole pixel turns to white color

as shown in Figure 8. The camera detected an object in the

top right pixel and that is why it turned to white.

F. Power Consumption Calculations:

F.A Power Consumption of the 4x4 System:

The total power consumption that is being drawn from the

12V power supply is 144Wh and from the Arduino is

1.53Wh. Adding them together, we will get the power

consumption of one 4x4 unit system:

𝐸(𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙) = 144𝑊ℎ + (1.53𝑊ℎ) = 145.53𝑊ℎ (3)

F.B Power Consumption of the Entire System:

Since four 4x4 unit systems will be implemented, the total

power consumption will be multiplied by 4. In addition, for

every 4x4 unit system, we will require a 12V 12Ah battery.

Thus, the total power consumption of the entire system will

be:

𝐸(𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙) ∗ 4 = 582.12𝑊ℎ (4)

V. CONCLUSION

In this paper, the design of a Touchable Table prototype

was introduced. The system’s architecture, data analysis, and

acquisition in terms of how the data is flowing in the system

in the context level was explained. As for the implementation,

we tested the components that were used, the power faders,

motor drivers, and Arduino. The operation of power faders

under certain circumstances when uploading a code to the

Arduino was verified. The software implementation in terms

of Serial communication between the Arduino and the

Processing software was presented. A user-friendly graphical

user interface was also developed.

REFERENCES

[1] M. Allinson, “BMW Shows off Its Smart Factory Technologies at Its Plants Worldwide”, Market Trends and Business Perspectives, December, 2017.

[2] D. Leithinger, "Sublimate: State-Changing Virtual and Physical Rendering to Augment Interaction with Shape Displays", Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference On Human Factors in Computing Systems.

ACM, 2013. [3] D. Leithinger, I. Hiroshi. "Relief: A Scalable Sctuated Shape

Display", Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on

Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction, ACM, 2010. [4] M. Blackshaw, "Recompose: Direct and Gestural Interaction with an

Actuated Surface", CHI'11 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in

Computing Systems, ACM, 2011. [5] B. Piper, R. Carlo, I. Hiroshi, "Illuminating Clay: A 3-D Tangible

Interface for Landscape Analysis", Proceedings of the SIGCHI

Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, ACM, 2002. [6] H. Iwata, "Project FEELEX: Adding Haptic Surface to

Graphics." Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference on Computer

Graphics and Interactive Techniques, ACM, 2001. [7] I. Poupyrev, "Lumen: Interactive Visual and Shape Display for Calm

Computing", ACM SIGGRAPH 2004 Emerging Technologies. ACM,

2004.