MagniFinger

Author

Obushi, Noriyasu and Wakisaka, Sohei and Kasahara, Shunichi and Seaborn, Katie and Hiyama, Atsushi and Inami, Masahiko

Abstract

By adulthood, our fingers have developed a high level of dexterity: sensory and motor skills that developers have only just started to make use of in modern interfaces. Previous research has unveiled the possibilities of enhancing touch modalities by introducing visual feedback of the magnified touch image. Yet, most of the microscopes on the market require a complicated procedure to operate and this makes it difficult to move the felt/observed area. To address this, we introduce MagniFinger, a new finger-based microscope that allows users to magnify the contacting surface on their fingertips using two means of control: sliding and tilting. The tilting-based control enables a more precise movement under micro-environments. According to the results of our experiments, it shortens the time of reaching targets compared to the simple sliding-based control.