Back to the Drawing Board

Across the smooth wall of an obscure corridor, the artist conjures up symbols, shapes, animals, and portrays scenes from human activity.

This scene could have easily taken place in 15,000 BC on the walls of the caves of Lascaux. Instead of using paint, the artist used animated pictures on the walls of Emerging Technologies at the 2007 edition of Siggraph. From painting with hands on walls of a cave to the future of work environments, one could say we are coming full circle.

A convergence of technologies years in the making gives hints to how user interfaces may soon evolve, among other things, to make the digital artistic experience something more visceral and personal. Ideas and prototypes have been showcased for years in conferences such as Siggraph, but only recently advances have renewed interest and investment in this kind of research.

No need to go as far as the spectacular interface from “Minority Report.” The future may look a lot more familiar.

Imagine an electronic version of the classic drawing board used by architects or engineers.

The table would be touch sensitive, using multi touch technology to easily navigate through applications and tasks.

Forget about jumping between a keyboard and graphic tablet… Draw directly on the desk! Open up a virtual keyboard to type, or simply handwrite your text and the computer would capture it for you. For additional comfort, it is easy to imagine wireless devices such as physical keyboards (if you miss the feeling of pressing keys) or a collection of pens and brushes to increase interaction. The possibilities of devices go beyond simply reproducing traditional tools – think painting with videos or scanning photographs by laying them out against the desk. All this under your fingertips, while comfortably sitting at your drawing board.

If you need to share your work or discuss a project, simply make the table horizontal and work around a common workspace.

If you want to watch a movie, just flip it vertically and use it as a large, flat video display.

When you are done, push it against the wall and turn it into a digital painting or an ambient information display made of a collection of your favorite news sources.

Is it too far fetched ?

Specialized prototypes already exist. The Cintiq display from Wacom already allows you to draw directly onto the screen and forget about a graphic tablet altogether, but it is still a far cry from a completely integrated computer drawing board.

Closer to that vision, the Touch Table provides an integrated system for manipulating geographic and security data. And to not leave this concept into the hands of highly specialized applications, Microsoft just recently unveiled their Surface multitouch system, with an impressive array of applications for businesses, travel agencies, hotels, restaurants and museums.