Shining a Light on Data
Handheld data projections made easy
Imagine being able to turn any surface around you into an interactive display for data visualization. That’s exactly what VisTorch, a handheld projector, allows you to do. This device combines a pico-projector, a multi-spectrum digital camera, and a touch input surface to bring data to life in your own room. In a recent paper published at ACM CHI 2024, Biswaksen Patnaik and his team of collaborators from University of Maryland and Aarhus University showed how.
Traditional data displays, such as screens and monitors, are limited by their size and mobility. Augmented Reality (AR) headsets, while advanced, are often expensive and cumbersome, not to mention for personal use. VisTorch strikes a balance by providing an immersive, shared display that is both portable and effective.
How does it work? When you point the VisTorch at a nearby wall, desk, or even a refrigerator, it projects interactive charts and graphs onto these surfaces. This is made possible through fiducial markers, which are small tags placed in the environment that help the device anchor the visualizations accurately. By adjusting for the orientation of the room’s surfaces, the projected data can be made to appear clear and undistorted, no matter the angle from which you view it.
Anchoring data in the real world using a handheld projector has many benefits. For example, in a classroom, teachers can project interactive lessons directly onto students’ desks or the classroom walls. Similarly, in a business setting, teams can gather around a table and see their data visualized directly on its surface, facilitating better discussion.
Imagine walking into a retail store and wanting to know more about a product. With VisTorch, a salesperson can project product specifications, reviews, and comparisons directly onto the products themselves. This not only provides a richer shopping experience but also makes information more accessible and relevant, aiding in better decision-making.
In a user study reported in the CHI 2024 paper, participants found VisTorch easy to use. They appreciated how the device allows for a hands-on interaction with data, akin to shining a flashlight in a dark room to reveal hidden objects. This method of revealing information is already familiar, making it easy for users to adopt. Participants also highlighted the benefit of creating spatial layouts of data, thereby supporting recall of information. These layouts tap into people’s natural spatial memory, helping users create mental maps of the data locations.
VisTorch represents a significant step forward in enabling immersive analytics without dedicated AR/VR headsets. By turning any surface into an interactive dashboard, it makes data more accessible, engaging, and useful in any contexts. We look forward to seeing how these ideas will take flight in the future.
Citation
- Patnaik, B., Peng, H., & Elmqvist, N. (2024). VisTorch: Interacting with Situated Visualizations using Handheld Projectors. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 208:1–208:13, 2024.
