Making Massive Physical Books Interactive

Ebooks may be convenient, but that doesn’t diminish the allure of touching good old fashioned ink-soaked paper. Unfortunately, the process of applying ink to paper tends to be permanent, and leaves the resulting pages static and lifeless. So, if your goal is create an interactive exhibit that still retains the enticing feel of physical books, what are you to do?

If you’re Robert Brambila and your company Tamper Studios has been hired to create such an exhibit, you combine the best of both worlds to make a physical book that is also interactive. Tamper Studios was commissioned to make four huge 40" x 30" books, and they needed to be interactive. The exhibit was set to appear at the United Nation’s 2017 General Assembly in New York, so the results needed to be top-notch.

To make those books display more than just printed pages, Brambila and his team paired a Kinect sensor and a projector. Those work in conjunction with capacitive touch sensors embedded in the books to allow patrons to turn virtual pages and interact with the content on those pages. The result is a fun interactive exhibit that still possesses all of the charm of a paper book.