Dr. Malte Weiss

Malte completed his PhD with distinction ("summa cum laude") on interactive tabletops and tangible user interfaces at the Media Computing Group under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Jan Borchers in 2013. To find out what he did next, check out our alumni page.

I was a PhD student at Media Computing Group from October 2007 to January 2013.

I was conducting research at the intersection of interactive surfaces and tangible user interfaces. My PhD thesis focussed on improving the limited haptic experience on touch-based surfaces with dynamic physical controls that integrate well into the nature of interactive tabletops while being lightweight, passive, and low-cost.

My PhD thesis is available for download (pdf): high-res (172 MB), low-res (8 MB)
www.malte-weiss.de

Research Projects

HoloDesk is a novel interactive system combining an optical see through display and Kinect camera to create the illusion that users are directly interacting with 3D graphics.

Full paper at CHI 2012 in collaboration with Microsoft Research Cambridge.

Dynamic Portals is a light-weight touch-based technique that allows to transfer virtual objects to distant locations on an interactive tabletop.

Note at ITS 2011. Received Best Note Award.

FingerFlux is a haptic output technique that provides near-surface haptic feedback on interactive tabletops. It combines an electromagnetic display with a permanent magnet attached to the user's index finger.

Paper and demo at UIST 2011. Demo received 3rd place of Best Demo Award.

We render physical effects in tabletop controls using electromagnetic actuation. Keeping the advantages of low-cost passive tangible, we allow designers to change physical properties on the fly, such as weight, friction, spring resistance, and detents.

Note at CHI 2011.

BendDesk is an interactive desk environment that merges a vertical and a horizontal display with a curve. The entire surface is touch sensitive and supports direct manipulation of digital objects.

Full paper and demo at ITS 2010.

Madgets are low-cost, untethered, and easy-to-build tangible controls for interactive tabletops. Our tabletop maintains the consistency between physical controls and their digital state by using electromagnetic actuation.

Full paper at UIST 2010.

SLAP Widgets are tangible general-purpose controls for interactive tabletops, made from silicone and acrylic. They combine the haptic feedback of physical controls with the flexibility of on-screen widgets.

Full paper at CHI 2009. Demo at CHI 2009 and TEI 2009.

We are developing an HCI design pattern language that provides solutions for recurring problems when designing interactive tabletops and applications.

Paper at EuroPLoP 2010.

DRAGON is a direct-manipulation interaction technique for frame-accurate navigation in video scenes.

Note at CHI 2008. Received Best Note Award.

Other projects

The Aachener Frieden is an interactive exhibit at the city hall of Aachen. It lets users explore the historical background of the Peace of Aachen in a playful tangible way.

BallMeR is multi-player soccer game using the pressure-sensitive multi-touch keyboard by Microsoft Research.

Received 2nd place at Student Innovation Contest of UIST 2009 for the category Best Implementation.

Internships and Visits

2011 Internship with Otmar Hilliges and Shahram Izadi at Microsoft Research, 4 months, Cambridge, UK.
2006-07 Research Scholar with Paul Debevec in Graphics Group of Institute for Creative Technologies, 6 months, Los Angeles, USA.

Publications

PhD Thesis

Malte Weiss. Bringing Haptic General-Purpose Controls to Interactive Tabletops. PhD thesis, RWTH Aachen University, 2012. (pdf, high-res, 172 MB) (pdf, low-res, 8 MB) (bibtex)

Full Papers and Notes

Otmar Hilliges, David Kim, Shahram Izadi, Malte Weiss, and Andrew Wilson. HoloDesk: Direct 3D Interactions with a Situated See-Through Display. In Proceedings of CHI '12, pp. 2421-2430, New York, NY, USA, 2012. ACM Press. (bibtex)
Simon Voelker, Malte Weiss, Chat Wacharamanotham, and Jan Borchers. Dynamic Portals: A Lightweight Metaphor for Fast Object Transfer on Interactive Surfaces. In Proceedings of ITS '11, pp. 158-161, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM Press. Best ITS 2011 Note Award. (web) (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Chat Wacharamanotham, Simon Voelker, and Jan Borchers. FingerFlux: Near-surface Haptic Feedback on Tabletops. In Proceedings of UIST '11, pp. 615-620, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM Press. (web) (pdf) (movie) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Christian Remy, and Jan Borchers. Rendering Physical Effects in Tabletop Controls. In CHI '11: Proceedings of the twenty-ninth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 3009-3012, New York, NY, USA, 2011. ACM Press. (web) (pdf) (movie) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker, Christine Sutter, and Jan Borchers. BendDesk: Dragging Across the Curve. In ITS '10: Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, pp. 1-10, New York, NY, USA, November 2010. ACM. (web) (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski, and Jan Borchers. Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops. In Proceedings of UIST '10, pp. 293–302, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM Press. (web) (pdf) (bibtex)
Christian Remy, Malte Weiss, Martina Ziefle, and Jan Borchers. A Pattern Language for Interactive Tabletops in Collaborative Workspaces. In EuroPLoP '10: Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs, Irsee Monastery, Germany, July 2010. (web) (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Julie JWagner, Yvonne Jansen, Roger Jennings, Ramsin Khoshabeh, James D. Hollan, and Jan Borchers. SLAP Widgets: Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Controls on Tabletops. In CHI '09: Proceedings of the twenty-seventh annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 481-490, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM Press. (web) (pdf) (movie) (bibtex)
Thorsten Karrer, Malte Weiss, Eric Lee, and Jan Borchers. DRAGON: A Direct Manipulation Interface for Frame-Accurate In-Scene Video Navigation. In Proceedings of the CHI 2008 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 247-250, Florence, Italy, April 2008. ACM Press. Best CHI 2008 Note Award. (web) (pdf) (movie) (bibtex)
Wan-Chun Ma, Tim Hawkins, Pieter Peers, Charles-Felix Chabert, Malte Weiss, and Paul Debevec. Rapid Acquisition of Specular and Diffuse Normal Maps from Polarized Spherical Gradient Illumination. In 2007 Eurographics Symposium on Rendering, June 2007. (bibtex)

Book Chapters

Malte Weiss, James D. Hollan, and Jan Borchers. Augmenting Interactive Tabletops with Translucent Tangible Controls. In Tabletops - Horizontal Interactive Displays, Human Computer Interaction Series, chapter 7, pp. 157-180. Springer Verlag, April 2010. (web) (bibtex)

Doctoral Symposia

Malte Weiss. Bringing Everyday Applications to Interactive Surfaces. In Extended Abstracts of UIST '10, pp. 375-378, New York, NY, USA, 2010. (pdf) (bibtex)

Workshop Papers

Malte Weiss, Gero Herkenrath, Lucas Braun, Jan Borchers. Text Entry on Interactive Tabletops Using Transparent Physical Keyboards. Contribution to CHI 2012 Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Text Entry Methods. (pdf) (bibtex)

Demos

Malte Weiss, Chat Wacharamanotham, Simon Voelker, and Jan Borchers. FingerFlux demo at UIST '11. 3rd place for Best Demo Award at UIST 2011. (web) (movie)
Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker, and Jan Borchers. The BendDesk Demo - Multi-touch on a Curved Display. In ITS '10: Adjunct Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, p. 317, New York, NY, USA, November 2010. ACM. (web) (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Julie JWagner, Roger Jennings, Yvonne Jansen, Ramsin Khoshabeh, James D. Hollan, and Jan Borchers. SLAP Widgets: Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Controls on Tabletops. In CHI '09: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3229-3234, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM Press. (web) (pdf) (movie) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Julie JWagner, Roger Jennings, Yvonne Jansen, Ramsin Khoshabeh, James D. Hollan, and Jan Borchers. SLAPbook: Tangible Widgets on Multi-touch Tables in Groupware Environments. In TEI '09: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, pp. 297-300, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM Press. (pdf) (bibtex)

Contests

Malte Weiss, Gero Herkenrath, Jonathan Diehl. BallMeR. 2nd place at Student Innovation Contest of UIST 2009. (web)

Talks

Bringing Haptic General-Purpose Controls to Interactive Tabletops on December 7th, 2012, at Hasselt University, Belgium.
Tangible Widgets on Tabletops on July 6th, 2010, at Media Informatics Group, LMU Munich, Germany.

Posters

Christian Remy, Malte Weiss, and Jan Borchers. A Pattern Language for Interactive Surfaces in Collaborative Workspaces. In ITS '09: Extended Abstracts of ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, November 2009. (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker, and Jan Borchers. BendDesk: Seamless Integration of Horizontal and Vertical Multi-Touch Surfaces in Desk Environments. In ITS '09: Extended Abstracts of ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, 2009. (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, and Jan Borchers. Actuated Translucent Controls for Dynamic Tangible Applications on Interactive Tabletops. In ITS '09: Extended Abstracts of ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, November 2009. (pdf) (bibtex)
Florian Heller, Thomas Knott, Malte Weiss, and Jan Borchers. Multi-User Interaction in Virtual Audio Spaces. In CHI EA '09: Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 4489-4494, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM Press. (pdf) (bibtex)
Dieter Drobny, Malte Weiss, and Jan Borchers. Saltate! - A Sensor-Based System to Support Dance Beginners. In CHI '09: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 3943-3948, New York, NY, USA, 2009. ACM Press. (pdf) (bibtex)
Malte Weiss, Roger Jennings, Julie JWagner, James D. Hollan, Ramsin Khoshabeh, and Jan Borchers. SLAP: Silicone Illuminated Active Peripherals. In Extended Abstracts of Tabletop '08, pp. 37-38, 2008. (pdf) (bibtex)
Stefan Hafeneger, Malte Weiss, Gero Herkenrath, and Jan Borchers. PocketTable: Mobile Devices as Multi-Touch Controllers for Tabletop Application Development. In Extended Abstracts of Tabletop '08, pp. 39-40, 2008. (pdf) (bibtex)
Carsten Winkelholz, Thomas Alexander, and Malte Weiss. Open activeWrl: a middleware based software development toolkit for immersive VE systems. In 7th International Immersive Projection Technologies Workshop and the 9th Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments, EGVE '03, pages 321-322, 2003. ACM. Best Poster Award. (bibtex)

Diploma Thesis

Malte Weiss. Depth-Discontinuity Preserving Optical Flow Using Time-Multiplexed Illumination. Master's thesis, RWTH Aachen University, University of Southern California, 2007. (pdf) (bibtex)

Organization

Conferences

Publication Co-chair at ITS 2010.

Workshops

Kris Luyten, Davy Vanacken, Malte Weiss, Jan Borchers, and Miguel Nacenta. Second Workshop on Engineering Patterns for Multi-Touch Interfaces. Workshop at the ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS) 2011, June 2011, Pisa, Italy. (web)
Kris Luyten, Davy Vanacken, Malte Weiss, Jan Borchers, Shahram Izadi, and Daniel Wigdor. Engineering Patterns for Multi-Touch Interfaces. Workshop at the ACM SIGCHI Symposium on Engineering Interactive Computing Systems (EICS) 2010, June 2010, Berlin, Germany. (web)

Teaching Activities

WS 2010/11: Media Computing Project
SS 2010: Current Topics in Media Computing and Human Computer Interaction
WS 2009/10: HCI Design Patterns
SS 2009: Current Topics in Media Computing and Human Computer Interaction
WS 2008/09: Seminar: Post-Desktop User Interfaces
WS 2008/09: HCI Design Patterns
SS 2008: Proseminar Mensch-Maschine-Interaktion (in German)
SS 2008: Designing Interactive Systems II
WS 2007/08: Designing Interactive Systems I

Supervised Student Theses

Ronny Seidel (2011): An analysis of the conflict between user control and the need for physical-visual consistency in tangible tabletop interaction
Christopher Gretzki (2011): ProMadgets - Prototyping of tangible magnetic widgets for interactive tabletops
Simon Völker (2010): BendDesk - Seamless Integration of Horizontal and Vertical Multi-Touch Surfaces in Desk Environments
Christian Remy (2010): A Pattern Language for Interactive Tabletops in Collaborative Workspaces
Damian Lubosch (2010): Enriching Mobile File Exchange using Tangible Controls on Multitouch Tables
Florian Schwarz (2010): Madgets - Actuated Translucent Controls for Dynamic Tangible Applications on Interactive Tabletops
Julie Wagner (2009): SLAP - Silicone Illuminated Active Peripherals
Florian Heller (2008): CORONA - Realizing an Interactive Experience in Visually Untouchable Rooms Using Continuous Virtual Audio Spaces
Dieter Drobny (2008): Saltate! - A Sensor Based System to Support Dance Beginners
Alexander Strauch (2007): VirlWind - A mobile device for user-centered augmented reality
Bastian Sopora (2007): HandWrite - A text input technique for multitouch tabletops using hand gestures

Publications

2012

Malte Weiss. Bringing Haptic General-Purpose Controls to Interactive Tabletops. PhD Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, August 2012.

Otmar Hilliges, David Kim, Shahram Izadi, Malte Weiss and Andrew Wilson. HoloDesk: Direct 3d Interactions With a Situated See-through Display. In CHI '12: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 2421–2430, ACM, New York, NY, USA, May 2012.

Malte Weiss, Gero Herkenrath and Lucas Braun. Text Entry on Interactive Tabletops Using Transparent Physical Keyboards. In CHI 2012 Workshop on Designing and Evaluating Text Entry Methods,May 2012.

2011

Kris Luyten, Davy Vanacken, Malte Weiss, Jan Borchers and Miguel Nacenta. Second Workshop on Engineering Patterns for Multi-Touch Interfaces. Misc, June 2011.

Malte Weiss, Chat Wacharamanotham, Simon Voelker and Jan Borchers. FingerFlux: Near-surface Haptic Feedback on Tabletops. In UIST '11: Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, pages 615–620, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 2011.

Simon Voelker, Malte Weiss, Chat Wacharamanotham and Jan Borchers. Dynamic Portals: A Lightweight Metaphor for Fast Object Transfer on Interactive Surfaces. In ITS '11: Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, pages 158–161, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 2011.

Malte Weiss, Christian Remy and Jan Borchers. Rendering Physical Effects in Tabletop Controls. In CHI '11: Proceedings of the twenty-ninth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 3009–3012, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 2011.

2010

Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker and Jan Borchers. The BendDesk Demo - Multi-touch on a Curved Display. In ITS '10: Adjunct Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, pages 317, ACM, New York, NY, USA, November 2010.

Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker, Christine Sutter and Jan Borchers. BendDesk: Dragging Across the Curve. In ITS '10: Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, pages 1–10, ACM, New York, NY, USA, November 2010.

Malte Weiss. Bringing Everyday Applications to Interactive Surfaces. In UIST 2010 Extended Abstracts, pages 375–378,New York, NY, October 2010.

Christian Remy, Malte Weiss, Martina Ziefle and Jan Borchers. A Pattern Language for Interactive Tabletops in Collaborative Workspaces. In EuroPLoP '10: Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs,Irsee Monastery, Germany, July 2010.

Kris Luyten, Davy Vanacken, Malte Weiss, Jan Borchers, Shahram Izadi and Daniel Wigdor. Engineering Patterns for Multi-Touch Interfaces. Misc, June 2010.

Malte Weiss, James D. Hollan and Jan Borchers. Augmenting Interactive Tabletops with Translucent Tangible Controls. In Tabletops - Horizontal Interactive Displays, Human Computer Interaction Series, pages 157–180, Springer Verlag, Incollection, April 2010.

Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski and Jan Borchers. Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops. In Proceedings of UIST '10, pages 293–302, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 2010.

2009

Christian Remy, Malte Weiss and Jan Borchers. A Pattern Language for Interactive Surfaces in Collaborative Workspaces. In ITS '09: Extended Abstracts of ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ACM, New York, NY, USA, November 2009.

Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz and Jan Borchers. Actuated Translucent Controls for Dynamic Tangible Applications on Interactive Tabletops. In ITS '09: Extended Abstracts of ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces, ACM, New York, NY, USA, November 2009.

Malte Weiss, Julie Wagner, Roger Jennings, Yvonne Jansen, Ramsin Khoshabeh, James D. Hollan and Jan Borchers. SLAPbook: Tangible Widgets on Multi-touch Tables in Groupware Environments. In TEI '09: Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Tangible and embedded interaction, pages 297–300, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

Dieter Drobny, Malte Weiss and Jan Borchers. Saltate! - A Sensor-Based System to Support Dance Beginners. In CHI '09: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 3943–3948, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

Florian Heller, Thomas Knott, Malte Weiss and Jan Borchers. Multi-User Interaction in Virtual Audio Spaces. In CHI EA '09: Proceedings of the 27th international conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, pages 4489–4494, ACM Press, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

Malte Weiss, Julie Wagner, Roger Jennings, Yvonne Jansen, Ramsin Khoshabeh, James D. Hollan and Jan Borchers. SLAP Widgets: Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Controls on Tabletops. In CHI '09: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 3229–3234, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

Malte Weiss, Julie Wagner, Yvonne Jansen, Roger Jennings, Ramsin Khoshabeh, James D. Hollan and Jan Borchers. SLAP Widgets: Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Controls on Tabletops. In CHI '09: Proceedings of the 27th international conference on Human factors in computing systems, pages 481–490, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker and Jan Borchers. BendDesk: Seamless Integration of Horizontal and Vertical Multi-Touch Surfaces in Desk Environments. In Adjunct Proceedings ITS ’09. ACM, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2009.

2008

Thorsten Karrer, Malte Weiss, Eric Lee and Jan Borchers. DRAGON: A Direct Manipulation Interface for Frame-Accurate In-Scene Video Navigation. In CHI '08: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pages 247–250, ACM Press, Florence, Italy, April 2008.

Stefan Hafeneger, Malte Weiss, Gero Herkenrath and Jan Borchers. PocketTable: Mobile Devices as Multi-Touch Controllers for Tabletop Application Development. In Extended Abstracts of Tabletop '08, pages 39–40,2008.

Malte Weiss, Roger Jennings, Julie Wagner, James D. Hollan, Ramsin Khoshabeh and Jan Borchers. SLAP: Silicone Illuminated Active Peripherals. In Extended Abstracts of Tabletop '08, pages 37–38,2008.

2007

Wan-Chun Ma, Tim Hawkins, Pieter Peers, Charles-Felix Chabert, Malte Weiss and Paul Debevec. Rapid Acquisition of Specular and Diffuse Normal Maps from Polarized Spherical Gradient Illumination. In 2007 Eurographics Symposium on Rendering,June 2007.

Malte Weiss. Depth-Discontinuity Preserving Optical Flow Using Time-Multiplexed Illumination. Master's Thesis, RWTH Aachen University, University of Southern California,2007.

2003

Carsten Winkelholz, Thomas Alexander and Malte Weiss. Design of a Framework Facilitating Scalable Immersive VE Systems for Interaction with VRML/X3D Content. In 7th International Immersive Projection Technologies Workshop and the 9th Eurographics Workshop on Virtual Environments, EGVE '03, pages 321–322, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2003.