FlexiWall: Exploring Layered Data with Elastic Displays

By their deformable screen-materials elastic displays and projection screens provide physical three-dimensional interaction modalities like push, pull or bend. Compared with conventional Multi-Touch displays they offer an additional interaction dimension which can be used to explore data. In this article we describe the FlexiWall, a large elastic display, and several example applications using layered data sets. The exploration of several layers and correlations between these is not common to traditional user interfaces, where the interaction is often constrained to two dimensions. Therefore, new forms of interaction are introduced. We furthermore propose additional techniques and tools to explore layered data sets, e.g. utilizing transparent objects when interacting with elastic displays.