Illumipaper: paper that can selectively illuminate to provide interactivity

Illumipaper is a well-developed prototype from Interactive Media Lab Dresden; the researchers behind it used a variety of techniques to create regular-seeming paper with all the traditional characteristics (it can be crumpled, folded, written on with pen and ink, etc); but a wireless controller allows it to be selectively illuminated to provide interactivity (e.g. to provide tips on homework problems).

It's a fascinating project that really feels futuristic -- like something that is yet to come, brought to life now.

Due to their simplicity and flexibility, digital pen-and-paper solutions have a promising potential to become a part of our daily work. Unfortunately, they lack dynamic visual feedback and thereby restrain advanced digital functionalities. In this paper, we investigate new forms of paper-integrated feedback, which build on emerging paper-based electronics and novel thin-film display technologies. Our approach focuses on illuminated elements, which are seamlessly integrated into standard paper. For that, we introduce an extended design space for paper-integrated illuminations. As a major contribution, we present a systematic feedback repertoire for real-world applications including feedback components for innovative paper interaction tasks in five categories. Furthermore, we contribute a fully-functional research platform including a paper-controller, digital pen and illuminated, digitally controlled papers that demonstrate the feasibility of our techniques. Finally, we report on six interviews, where experts rated our approach as intuitive and very usable for various applications, in particular educational ones.

IllumiPaper: Illuminated Interactive Paper [Dipl.-Medieninf. Konstantin Klamka and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Raimund Dachselt/Interactive Media Lab Dresden]

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