Prototyping an Intuitive Circuit Simulator Manipulated by Hand Gestures for Elementary Physics Education

Intuitive method of manipulating computer is always required. Projection-based interface is one of the intuitive systems. Projection-based interface consists of a projector for output and a camera for input, and it manipulates computers by recognizing hand gestures. This paper suggests applying projection-based interface to the education field and developing an integrated physical simulator for elementary physics education. Computer Graphics (CG) can visualize invisible phenomena and this interface provides intuitive manipulation. By combining these benefits, users can simulate physical phenomena intuitively by own hands without any wearable device and understand them easily. Additionally, this system reduces costs of preparing actual experiments. As the first step of developing the proposed simulator, we propose an intuitive circuit simulator based on the projection-based interface. In this paper we report prototyping and evaluating the proposed intuitive circuit simulator.