Interaction Between Tangible and Virtual Agents on Interactive Tables: Principles and Case Study

Interactive tables (tactile, tangible and mixed tables) are mainly used as support of interaction to design applications and value-added services. Indeed, new collaborative applications emerged from theses new supports using classical interaction (through keyboard, mouse and screen devices). Nowadays, new sensory entries enable users using their hands to manipulate different objects. This article is indented to propose a global interaction model that associates multiagent system concepts to interactive table entities. The model proposes two types of entities that can be used simultaneously: virtual and tangible entities. The virtual entities can result from video projection or from screen use on the interactive table. The tangible entities are physical objects that can be manipulated by one or several users. These are detected through dedicated sensors. At the end of this article, a case study is presented. It illustrates the management of a road traffic simulator using the TangiSense interactive table. The illustrations show mainly the communication between the different agents. In addition, the simulator presents the advantages of the proposed model in order to facilitate the implied users’ decision during the simulation process.