Proceedings of the 2012 ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces

We are pleased to welcome you to the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS) 2012, held from November 11-14th, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ITS 2012 marks the 7th anniversary of a series of annual research workshops and conferences that began in 2006 in Adelaide, Australia. In this short amount of time, the field of Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces has rapidly evolved. Hardware prices are falling, core sensing technology is improving, software toolkits are maturing, and interaction paradigms are beginning to solidify. As a result, interactive tabletops and surfaces are increasingly making their way beyond laboratories and appearing in a wide variety of private and public spaces including museums, offices, schools, airports, hotels, medical centers, and homes. Such surfaces employ a variety of technologies including capacitive sensing, computer vision, motion sensors, and appear in a variety of formfactors such as large walls and tabletops, tablets and slates, flexible materials, and on-demand projection. Sponsored by ACM and generously supported by National Science Foundation and industry, the ACM conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces brings together researchers and practitioners from a variety of backgrounds and interest areas. The intimate size of this singletrack symposium provides an ideal venue for leading researchers, practitioners, and students to exchange research results and experiences. This year we received 103 paper and note submissions (63 papers and 40 notes) of which we accepted 24 papers and 6 notes for an overall acceptance rate of 29%. We also introduced a new review process modeled after the 2012 ACM CSCW conference, in which papers and notes underwent two review cycles. After the first review by two external reviewers and one program committee member, submissions received either a "Revise" or "Reject" decision. Authors of papers in the "Revise" pool then participated in a second phase of the submission process, in which they had 31/2 weeks to revise and resubmit their work based on the initial reviews (and also received an additional meta-review from a second program committee member). Revised submissions were then re-reviewed as the basis for final decisions. This is similar to a journal review process, except that it is limited to one revision with a strict deadline. We believe that this process has resulted in an extremely high quality papers and notes program, which we hope that you find enlightening and exciting! In addition to the papers and notes program, the conference hosts several other programs. The Doctoral Symposium (DS) accepted seven doctoral students to discuss their research with peers and with a panel of experienced ITS researchers in an informal setting. The conference also includes an interactive hands-on reception that presents a juried selection of 21 posters and 18 demos. This year, ITS brings the theme of Beyond Flat Displays in our pre-conference venues with a tutorial and a workshop: four tutorials that offer novel practical experiences to conference attendees with diverse skills and backgrounds, and a pre-conference workshop that will challenge attendees to explore the realm Beyond Flat Displays. The National Science Foundation extends generous support for DS attendees and for student travel awards; this support will result in more opportunities for students to engage in this diverse and growing community. The titles of the papers, notes, posters, and demos, reflect the diversity of ideas and perspectives that comprise the ITS community, ranging from large tabletop surfaces to non-flat displays, from pen and paper to free-space interaction, from education to surfaces "in the wild". What brings it all together is a commitment to innovation that expands our understanding of design considerations of ITS technologies and of their applications.