Nice Pen-based Input Research

One of the things I enjoy to using this blog for is to share cool projects from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. This post highlights projects by Gonzalo Ramos (or "Gonzo" for short) and his co-authors. He has worked on several projects demonstrating how much better pen input software could be. These are just a few I like.

1. The Zlider - A pressure sensitive slider widget that adds additional navigation and control capability to standard slider interactions. Academic research video below. Quick demo montage at beginning, but the demo meat is at 3:07


2. Using a Pen to Effortlessly Bridge Displays. Using a stylus, you can simply drag documents between computer screens or mobile devices. The pen motion also implicity defines the orientation of the displays relative to one another. Academic video below. Demos at the beginning and more mobile screen scenarios at around 2:43


3. Rolling the Pen as Input Using an external tracker and a Wacom tablet, rotating the pen in your fingers can be used to control another parameter without moving the stylus. Academic video below, demo meat at 2:19


You can check more of his projects on his website.