Tag-based interaction with large high-resolution displays

Over the last couple of years, large high-resolution displays have become popular in research and industry. Because of their large screen area they have been used for the visualization of large data sets as well as for collaborative research. However, when dealing with large displays, it becomes apparent that there is a lack of appropriate input devices for interaction of multiple users with visualizations on a large-scale display. Many input devices for desktop PCs do not scale with the number of users or with the size of screens. In this paper, we present an interaction method that addresses this problem by giving each user a separate interaction device, which serves both as an input device by means of a camera, a small keyboard and touch input, as well as an output device capable of displaying rich text or small graphics in addition to the data that is being displayed on the large screen. The technology we present is based on two-dimensional barcodes and uses camera-equipped cell phones with touch screens as universal input/output devices for high-resolution displays, which communicate with each other over a wireless network. This approach allows us to address general problems of collaborative work with large displays, e.g., how to restrict access to information and how to customize data presentation for different users. We describe implementation details of our system and demonstrate its use in two application scenarios on a 23 × 9 ft. tiled display wall.