GaussMarbles: Spherical Magnetic Tangibles for Interacting with Portable Physical Constraints.

This work develops a system of spherical magnetic tangibles, GaussMarbles, that exploits the unique affordances of spherical tangibles for interacting with portable physical constraints. The proposed design of each magnetic sphere includes a magnetic polyhedron in the center. The magnetic polyhedron provides bi-polar magnetic fields, which are expanded in equal dihedral angles as robust features for tracking, allowing an analog Hall-sensor grid to resolve the near-surface 3D position accurately in real-time. Possible interactions between the magnetic spheres and portable physical constraints in various levels of embodiment were explored using several example applications.