Albert Hwang

Spatial Computing

If you’re like most people, when you interact with digital 3d content (video games, 3d models, even CGI for movies), you’re always doing it through a screen.  This is mostly because screens are the most straightforward way to interact with digital content.  However, many people believe that some day soon we’ll be able to interact with digital 3d content the space around our bodies.

This different way of viewing digital 3d content presents a lot of new challenges for those who have to design digital experiences.  This project sets out to propose and codify some design patterns around this upcoming technology.  It’s also designed to present a glimpse into the future of how computing may some day look and feel.

In the first installment, I go over the history of the HCI (human computer interaction) from a dimensional perspective, and introduce the main technological concepts that drive this experience.

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In the second installment, I talk about one specific use case: shopping.  Through this use case I explain a gesture vocabulary for object manipulation, one of the fundamental interface concepts for this proposed environment.

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In Part III, I show how to use this technology to reinvent the home theater system.  Instead of watching stories on a screen, how about watching stories in the physical space of your living room?

This installment continues the exploration of gesture-based object manipulation that was introduced in Spatial Computing 2.  The new gesture of “scaling” gives the user the ability to transform objects into environments — digital content that surrounds and contextualizes our bodies.

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Spatial Computing 3 wouldn’t have been possible without the help of so many incredible people.

10 Responses to this post
  1. Posted December 11, 2010 by simon williams

    Have sent an email also, but your project is truly inspiring!!!!!

  2. Posted April 19, 2011 by Chris

    Love the concept dude! Would not mind working on something like this!!

  3. Posted September 27, 2011 by joora

    this is waaaaaaaaaay cool! hope everybody gets to use it eventually. thanks for sharing!

  4. Posted October 17, 2011 by jamie griffiths

    Hi Albert, a fabulous visionary concept. I would love to be on your preview list. Nice talking with you today. cheers, jamie

  5. Posted December 5, 2011 by Marcus

    How is this different from virtual reality? Or is it just a newer term for it?

  6. Posted December 5, 2011 by Pratiksha

    Hey, awesome effort.

  7. Posted December 6, 2011 by Matt

    Found this site after seeing your creative business card. I hope I see this sort of technology in my lifetime!!

  8. Posted December 14, 2011 by dadeo

    Thanks for this future preview. And that biz card is genius. Does the tech exist to take this to fruition? If so, make it happen.

  9. Posted March 30, 2012 by Ari

    Amazing- watching this was super inspiring and got my brain working on overdrive thinking about a spacial operating system I’ve been toying around with. Thanks for putting this out there.

    -A

  10. Posted April 6, 2012 by Gillian

    I really enjoyed the videos, but I think there’s is too much of a gap between the written explanation and the clips as far as clarity and interest go. After reading the (especially the launch page text) text I did not understand a thing about what it is that you do (and I have: 1. a BA in English Lit 2. 15 years of tech writing experience under my belt). Once I watched the videos it all became very clear (and quite exciting), but if I hadn’t been bored and looking for something to stimulate my eyes, and on the basis of the text only, I would probably have skipped the content and missed out on something fairly awesome.

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