SnapRail
Genki Furumi, Daisuke Sakamoto, Takeo Igarashi · 2012
The screen of a tabletop computer is often occluded by physical objects such as coffee cups. This makes it difficult to see the virtual elements under the physical objects (visibility) and manipulate them (manipulability). Here we present a user interface widget, called "SnapRail," to address these problems, especially occlusion of a manipulable collection of virtual discrete elements such as icons. SnapRail detects a physical object on the surface and the virtual elements under the object. It then snaps the virtual elements to a rail widget that appears around the object. The user can then manipulate the virtual elements along the rail widget. We conducted a preliminary user study to evaluate the potential of this interface and collect initial feedback. The SnapRail interface received positive feedback from participants of the user study.