Optical Design of Tabletop Displays and Interactive Applications

Embedded electronic tabletop displays are useful for individual projects or group discussion. Our own approach to tabletop display design centers on our belief that not all information needs to be visualized. Instead, we want to create a natural and intuitive interaction environment that provides information in appropriate ways. To achieve these goals, we believe that an optical design of the hardware can make a new paradigm for novel information presentations and intuitive interactions on the tabletop. For example, when we use a normal screen on the tabletop, the display can show just single image on it. However, by adopting special materials and an optical design, the display can work as a view-dependent display or show images on not only the tabletop screen but also physical objects held over the tabletop. In this chapter, we focus on and describe the novel optical designs under tabletops and interaction design on them.