Aquatop Display

About AquaTop Display

AquaTop Display is a projection system that uses white water as a screen surface. With this device, users are given the possibilities of interactions from both above and below the water surface. Scooping up water, and poking one's fingers from under the surface is one such example. Through the Aquatop Display, we hope to revolutionise digital water interaction by offering an 'immersive' experience.

OUR GOAL

The goal of the Aquatop Display was to remove the risk of electronics in a wet environment (smartphones in the bath) whilst innovating new techniques for interaction with challenging materials such as water.

USING WATER

The unique charactistic of water is that it allows for both interaction underneath and above the surface. By allowing the user to " immerse " themselves in the water, it is possible to let the users become one with the virtual world realised in the display.

THE IDEA

In Japan, the bathing culture is very prominent and so it the use of products. The idea came from the use of commercialised bath salts that cloud the water. The surface of milky water can then be used as a projection surface. The more cloudy the surface, the more clear the projected images are.

SIMPLE INSTRUMENTS

The Aquatop Display can be recreated with an affordable depth camera (Microsoft Kinect) and a standard projector. Clouding agent can be off-the-shelf bath soaps found in most stores. Feedback found in the game application, seen above, is from a custom-built waterproof speaker system.

PUBLICATIONS & EXHIBITIONS & AWARDS

  • AquaTop Display: interactive water surface for viewing and manipulating information in a bathroom, ACM Interactive Tabletop and Surfaces (ITS '13) , pp.155-164, 2013. (PDF)
  • AquaTop Display , 2013 Asia Digital Art Award Fukuoka, Interactive Art. ADAA 2013 Awards Second Prize
  • AquaTop Display , Exhibition, DCEXPO'13. DCEXPO 2013 Awards Innovative Technology Culture
  • AquaTop Display: A True ”Immersive” Water Display System, SIGGRAPH'13 E-TECH.
  • AquaTop Display, Laval Virtual2013 ReVolution. VRIC'13. Laval Virtual Awards 2013 Grand Prix award, Interfaces and Materials award
  • Bathtub Display: An Interactive, Immersive bathtub display system (JPN), WISS'12. WISS Awards 2012 Interactive Presentation Award
  • Fluid surface: interactive water surface display for viewing information in a bathroom, Proc. of the 2012 ACM international conference on Interactive tabletops and surfaces (ITS'12), pp.311-314, 2013. (PDF)

Media

  • "Is water the future of gaming?", BBC, 2014/2/12 (Video)
  • SMAP x SMAP, Fuji TV, (Video)
  • World Business Satellite, TV Tokyo, Toretama 2013 Grand Prix Award (Video)
  • "AquaTop display is a touchscreen display for your bath", DigInfo TV (Video in English, Video in Japanese)
  • "Bath-time goes interactive in Japan", Reuters (Video)