HCI International Conference recently announced that the paper “The Vibropixels: a Scalable Wireless Tactile Display System” has received the Best Paper Award of the Human Interface and the Management of Information Thematic Area of the 2017 Human-Computer International Conference. The paper presents a brief overview of the VibroPixel tactile display system and discusses ways in which the system was created to facilitate its use in the artistic creation process. An evaluation of the system is presented as it was used in the creation of the multisensorial immersive art installation Haptic Field, by Chris Salter and Tez in collaboration with Ian Hattwick.
The VibroPixels are a wearable, wireless tactile display system which makes it easy to create a wide variety of touch sensations. The system consists of small, individually-controlled devices with embedded tactile actuators, controllable lighting, and motion sensing. While VibroPixels are capable of generating complex tactile stimuli individually, the system was specifically designed to allow for the creation of whole-body and large-scale social applications. For this purpose, 600 VibroPixels have been created and used in applications with up to 100 simultaneous participants.
The paper was authored by Ian Hattwick, Ivan Franco, and Marcelo M. Wanderley, working at the Input Devices and Music Interaction Lab at McGill University. The award will be accepted by Ian Hattwick at the 2017 HCI International Conference, held in Vancouver, BC. Hattwick will also give a presentation on the paper at 4pm on Wednesday, July 12 at a panel on multisensory wearable displays.
More information on the conference that is happening this week in Vancouver can be found here: http://2017.hci.international