Browsing museum image collections on a multi-touch table

In this paper we present a multi-touch tabletop system for browsing image databases, conceived for museums and art gallery exhibitions. The system exploits an innovative image browsing paradigm and image retrieval functionalities to perform natural and intuitive user interaction: users can explore the image database by handling digital pictures by means of touch gestures or by the use of a predetermined set of physical objects; once one of these objects is placed on the table, it is automatically recognized and the associated function is triggered. The set of objects and the function associations can be dynamically configured. An innovative feature of our application is that users can interactively create and manipulate image clusters where images are grouped according to their pictorial similarity. This is achieved by placing one or more specific tangible objects on the table surface. The system has been evaluated on a collection of photos organized in groups according to the UNESCO picture categories. The usability tests, performed considering different user categories, show that users consider the application to be attractive and interesting.