Squishy Volumes: Evaluation of Silicone as Camera-less Pressure-Based Input for 3-Dimensional Interaction

Abstract

Low cost sensors and materials are increasingly of interest to designers for developing new ways to gather 3-Dimensional input. Silicone is a low cost material with capabilities of a variety of forms and sizes, thereby facilitating flexible construction. Given these properties, users can construct unique input solutions for a variety of applications. However, aside from other existing methods of measuring volume deformation, molded silicone (without added components inside the silicone and without added external cameras) for volumetric input has not been largely explored. In this paper we present an evaluation that investigated the parameters of silicone as volumetric input. The silicone volume has no added components inside making it easy to construct and use, however some external but small, flexible, and portable low-cost components are used for deformation measurement. We present the 3-dimensional input results as a function of the physical pressure on the silicone by the volume of silicone. Researchers can use these input metrics to design a silicone-based device with desired size and thickness to achieve the desired sensitivity and resolution of input for their application.