Threads of Recognition: Using Touch As Input With Directionally Conductive Fabric

Abstract

In this paper, we describe the design of a touch input system utilizing directionally conductive fabric for use as “smart fabric” in wearable computing garments. Our development is based on utilizing the fabric surface as a tactile interface. We have defined a set of qualitative gestures using heuristic algorithms. This model provides high-level interpretations for the tactile quality of the caress, which is used to derive parameters for the interaction model. The user (or wearer) uses this fabric as interface to select interaction modes that direct data between networked garments in a wearable art installation. The fabric is composed of highly conductive fibers alternating with insulating materials, such that current can flow “along the grain” but not across. This design allows the fabric to become a passive conductor replacing conventional cables, and more significantly, an active device such as a touch sensor surface. The fabric is integrated into garments (in this example, a set of networked skirts), and is used to provide a source of tactile input. The garment is used to explore the interpersonal exchange of physiological data, controlled and selected by the individual wearing the garment, using gestures sensed by the fabric, and contact between garments, as initiated by the wearer. These connections form the basis of ongoing studies of the dynamics of person-person and person-group interactions.