Drawing Erasable Tactile Diagrams on Tacilia

Abstract

Advances in design using shape changing materials creates a unique opportunity for new haptic interactions. In this demonstration, we will present how a single sheet of Nitinol which is transformed into a reconfigurable tactile pixel array at Braille resolution can be used to read, draw and erase tactile diagrams. We call this interface Tacilia. Tactile drawing is facilitated through a hot-air-jet pencil which provides an intuitive manual control. Drawings can also be erased manually by compressing the pixels with fingertips or with the help of a plastic block. We observed that users instinctively develop unique autodidactic ways to draw and erase directly.

This work is funded by UKAID funded AT2030 program and UCL IITD Strategic Partner Funds 2019-2020.

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