Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

SnapBlocks: a snapping interface for assembling toy blocks with XBOX Kinect

  • Published:
Multimedia Tools and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Toy blocks can help the children develop various skills, such as spatial, mathematical, creative problem solving etc. In this paper, we developed a computer aided system for child to play blocks with a computer in a natural and intuitive way using the Kinect. We design a set of intuitive body gestures that allow the user to naturally control and navigate 3D toy blocks in a virtual environment. To conquer the imprecise interaction with Kinect, we propose a snapping interface, which automatically computes the optimal location and orientation of the to-be-assembled block. This interface can significantly reduce the user’s burden for fine tuning the blocks at the desired locations, which is often tedious and time consuming. As a result, the user can fully immerse him/herself in the game and construct a complicated structure easily. The experimental results and positive feedback from users demonstrate the efficacy of our approach to virtual assembly of building blocks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. This requirement would not be necessary if we configurate our system in an immersive environment.

  2. We mean the face is not fully contacted by other faces.

References

  1. Fisher D, Hartmann B (2011) Deep window—3d virtual camera control with a tablet and depth camera. In: ACM SIGCHI

  2. Hastings WK (1970) Monte carlo sampling methods using markov chains and their applications. Biometrika 57(1):97–109

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  3. Izadi S, Kim D, Hilliges O, Molyneaux D, Newcombe R, Kohli P, Shotton J, Hodges S, Freeman D, Davison A, Fitzgibbon A (2011) Kinectfusion: real-time 3d reconstruction and interaction using a moving depth camera. In: Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on user interface software and technology, pp 559–568

  4. Kim YM, Mitra NJ, Yan D-M, Guibas L (2012) Acquiring 3d indoor environments with variability and repetition. ACM Trans Graph 31(6):Article No 137

    Google Scholar 

  5. Kin K, Miller T, Bollensdorff B, DeRose T, Hartmann B, Agrawala M (2011) Eden: a professional multitouch tool for constructing virtual organic environments. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGCHI, pp 1343–1352

  6. Li X-Y, Shen C-H, Huang S-S, Ju T, Hu S-M (2011) Popup: automatic paper architectures from 3d models. ACM Trans Graph 29(4):Article No 111

    Google Scholar 

  7. Merrell P, Schkufza E, Koltun V (2010) Computer-generated residential building layouts. ACM Trans Graph 29(6):Article No 181

  8. Merrel P, Schkufza E, Li Z, Agrawala M, Koltun V (2011) Interactive furniture layout using interior design guidelines. ACM Trans Graph 30(4):Article No 87

    Google Scholar 

  9. Metropolis N, Rosenbluth AW, Rosenbluth MN, Teller AH, Teller E (1953) Equation of state calculations by fast computing machines. J Chem Phys 21(6):1087–1092

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Mitani J, Suzuki H (2004) Making papercraft toys from meshes using strip-based approximate unfolding. ACM Trans Graph 23(3):259–263

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Mitra NJ, Pauly M (2009) Shadow art. ACM Trans Graph 28(5):Article No. 156

  12. Mitra NJ, Yang Y-L, Yan D-M, Li W, Agrawala M (2010) Illustrating how mechanical assemblies work. ACM Trans Graph 29(4):Article No: 58

    Google Scholar 

  13. Mori Y, Igarashi T (2007) Plushie: an interactive design system for plush toys. ACM Trans Graph 26(3):Article No. 45

  14. Nan L, Xie K, Sharf A (2012) A search-classify approach for cluttered indoor scene understanding. ACM Trans Graph 31(6):Article No 11

  15. Preece J, Rogers Y, Sharp H (2002) Interaction design. Wiley, New York

    Google Scholar 

  16. Provenzo EF, Brett A (1984) The complete block book. Syracuse Univ Pr (Sd)

  17. Shao T, Xu W, Zhou K, Wang J, Li D, Guo B (2012) An interactive approach to semantic modeling of indoor scenes with an rgbd camera. In: ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2012. ACM Trans Graph 31(6):Article No. 136

  18. Shen C-H, Fu H, Chen K, Hu S-M (2012) Structure recovery by part assembly. ACM Trans Graph 31(6):Article No 180

  19. Shon Y, McMains S (2004) Evaluation of drawing on 3d surfaces with haptics. IEEE Comput Graph Appl 24(6):40–50

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Tong J, Zhou J, Liu L, Pan Z, Yan H (2012) Scanning 3d full human bodies using kinects. IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph 18(4):643–650

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Ware C, Rose J (1999) Rotating virtual objects with real handles. ACM Trans Comput Hum Interact 6(2):162–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Weise T, Bouaziz S, Li H, Pauly M (2011) Realtime performance-based facial animation. ACM Trans Graph 30(4):Article No 77

  23. Weiss A, Hirshberg D, Black MJ (2011) Home 3d body scans from noisy image and range data. In: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on computer vision, pp 1951–1958

  24. Wilson AD (2010) Using a depth camera as a touch sensor. In: ACM international conference on interactive tabletops and surfaces

  25. Wright TP (1936) Factors affecting the cost of airplanes. J Aeronaut Sci 3(4):122–128

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Xin S, Lai C-F, Fu C-W, Wong T-T, He Y, Cohen-Or D (2011) Making burr puzzles from 3d models. ACM Trans Graph 30(4):Article No. 97

  27. Yu L-F, Yeung S-K, Tang C-K, Terzopoulos D, Chan TF, Osher SJ (2011) Make it home: automatic optimization of furniture arrangement. ACM Trans Graph 30(4):Article 86

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61202142, No. 61100032), Joint Funds of the Ministry of Education of China and China Mobile (No. MCM20122081), the National Key Technology R&D Program Foundation of China (No. 2013BAH44F00), the Open Project Program of the State Key Lab of CAD&CG Zhejiang University (No. A1205) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2010121072, No. 2013121030). AcRF 69/07, Singapore NRF Interactive Digital Media R&D Program under research grant NRF2008IDM-IDM004-006.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software School, Xiamen University, Xiamen, People’s Republic of China

    Juncong Lin & Guilin Li

  2. School of Computer Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Nanyang, Singapore

    Qian Sun & Ying He

Authors
  1. Juncong Lin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Qian Sun
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Guilin Li
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Ying He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Juncong Lin.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lin, J., Sun, Q., Li, G. et al. SnapBlocks: a snapping interface for assembling toy blocks with XBOX Kinect. Multimed Tools Appl 73, 2009–2032 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-013-1690-7

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-013-1690-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation