Social Wall

Modular Interactive Wall for Collaborative Environments

Contact

Samuel Aldo Iacolina, valorisation@crs4.it

Challenge

The wide availability of large multi-touch screens is opening the possibility to easily create different interactive applications devised to infotainment, education and learning, exploiting various techniques for a more natural interaction, especially in open and shared places. Direct manipulation and touch sensing help the exploration of contents, especially for 3D scenes and interactive maps, where people find more comfortable the use of gestures and manipulation. Despite this touch screens allow many interaction at the same time (multi-touch point) and, therefore, those devices can host potentially more than a user at time, most applications still are single-user and do not allow collaboration.

Overview

CRS4 Social Wall creates an interactive surface starting from a real wall that supports multi-user applications enabling collaborative work. The system can be used in co-working spaces (e.g. classrooms, labs), where a group of users can work together to examine the contents, exploring them by gestures, to share information and even to communicate remotely with other collaborative platforms. It is based on several modules which detect interactions between objects and people in proximity of the surface that you want to make interactive. The technology supports different configurations (horizontal and vertical) for the construction of interactive surfaces from pre-existing physical surfaces (e.g. walls, pavement and ceiling of rooms). Moreover, it develops an innovative paradigm that not only include multi-touch events but also the interaction of objects with the surface.

The system allows:

to create interactive surfaces that can be customized, with a dimensional scale of your own choice;
to create a multi-user collaborative environment thanks to its compatibility with other devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.);
to manage contents optimized depending on the interactive support you want to utilize (3D models manipulators, high resolution images, 360° videos, etc.);
to create a network of collaborative environments that communicate remotely to each other.

Through social networks and Web technologies, the Social Wall allows users to sign in with their mobile device (smartphone or tablet), keeping connection with the outside world towards other platforms that make it a valid tool even for remote collaborative work. Its Maker version is based on a technology that deals with the construction of big interactive surfaces by using easily obtainable materials. It then defines DIY (Do It Yourself) instructions that make it possible for the general public to assemble, repeat and customize installations. Its wide customizability (via the Web) makes the Social Wall constantly renewable in terms of graphical layout and presented data, by means of low-cost, sustainable technologies.

Innovative features

it allows to create highly interactive applications that imply a great degree of involvement from the public;
it allows to create a whole interactive surface with no interruptions;
low realization costs;
maker Kit aimed to the general public for custom interactive installations;
detection of objects that touch the surface;
“Plug & Play” approach: the modules that detect interactions can be connected to any computer connected to the Internet;
flexibility, thanks to the countless configurations that you can create;
Thanks to the software framework, it allows to create multi-user, interactive web applications.

Potential users

The Social Wall as a DIY tool is useful for makers of all ages. It’s also useful for didactic applications: thanks to interactive modules, a user can get in touch with logical components and understand how an interactive system works and can be assembled.