User Interfaces > TangibleMouseHaus
About
TangibleMouseHaus is a java program that adds a physical front end to the MouseHaus program, a simulation of pedestrian behavior. Users of the MouseHaus pedestrian simulation model can define the positions and dimensions of elements such as building, park and attraction spots in an urban open space. Then, a user can choose the number of pedestrians and select a time of day, and the system simulates and records the pattern of pedestrian movement.
TangibleMouseHaus adds a physical and tangible component to the MouseHaus system. It enables users sitting around a table to interact with the simulation. The open space scene is rear projected onto the table from below. A video camera mounted on top of the table captures image of physical object placement {in this case, colored cards that represent the different built environment element. For example, a red paper rectangle represents a building while a green rectangle represents a park. A simple image processing program we wrote using Java Media Framework interprets frames from the video camera as input to the MouseHaus simulation.
Sister project: Tangible User Interface Toolkit (TUIT).