MisTable: reach-through personal screens for tabletops

We present MisTable, a tabletop system that combines a conventional horizontal interactive surface with personal screens between the user and the tabletop surface. These personal screens, built using fog, are both see-through and reach-through. Being see-through provides direct line of sight of the personal screen and the elements behind it on the tabletop. Being reach-through allows the user to switch from interacting with the personal screen to reaching through it to interact with the tabletop or the space above it. The personal screen allows a range of customisations and novel interactions such as presenting 2D personal contents on the screen, 3D contents above the tabletop or augmenting and relighting tangible objects differently for each user. Besides, having a personal screen for each user allows us to customize the view of each of them according to their identity or preferences. Finally, the personal screens preserve all well-established tabletop interaction techniques like touch and tangible interactions. We explore the challenges in building such a reach-through system through a proof-of-concept implementation and discuss the possibilities afforded by the system.