Tangible augmented prototyping of digital handheld products
Proposed in this paper is a novel approach to virtual prototyping of digital handheld products using augmented reality (AR)-based tangible interaction and functional behavior simulation. For tangible user interaction in an AR environment, we use two types of tangible objects: one is for a product, and the other is for a pointer. The user can create input events by touching specified regions of the product-type tangible object with the pointer-type tangible object. Rapid prototyping and paper-based modeling are adopted to fabricate the AR-based tangible objects which play an important role in improving the accuracy and tangibility of user interaction. For functional behavior simulation, we adopt a state transition methodology to capture the functional behavior of the product into an information model, and build a finite state machine (FSM) to control the transition between states of the product based on the information model. The FSM is combined with the AR-based tangible objects whose operations in the AR environment facilitate the tangible interaction, realistic visualization and functional simulation of a digital handheld product. Based on the proposed approach, a prototyping system has been developed and applied for the design evaluation of various digital handheld products with encouraging feedback from users. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
virtual prototyping augmented reality functional behavior simulation user interaction tangible objects