soap

microsoft research

up
patrick baudisch
projects

soap

The core of soap is an optical sensor. The core can rotate freely inside soap’s elastic hull. While pointing, users cause soap’s core to rotate by applying off-axis pressure. The relative motion between core and hull is picked up by the optical sensor inside the core.

Soap is a pointing device based on hardware found in a mouse, yet works in mid-air. Soap consists of an optical sensor device moving freely inside a hull made of fabric. As the user applies pressure from the outside, the optical sensor moves independent from the hull. The optical sensor perceives this relative motion and reports it as position input. Soap offers many of the benefits of optical mice, such as high-accuracy sensing. We have tried soap for a variety of application scenarios, including wall display interaction, Windows Media Center, slide presentation, and interactive video games described in this list of example scenarios.

or download this demo video

MOV (45M)

To make your own soap device, watch the video, then read PDF (2.4M)

See video and discussion on youTube (viewed 100,000+ times)

Publication
	Baudisch, P., Sinclair, M, and Wilson, A. Soap: a mouse-like pointing device that works in mid-air To appear in UIST 2006 (Technote), Montreux, Switzerland, Oct 15-18, 2006. PDF (2.9M) \| PPT (31M) \| MOV (45M) \| expert user (WMV 3M) \| first time user (WMV 11M)
Demos
	Baudisch, P., Sinclair, M, and Wilson, A. Soap: How to Make a Mouse Work in Mid-Air. In CHI 2007 Extended Abstracts (demo), San Jose, CA, Apr 28-May 18, 2007, pp. 1935-1940. PDF (1.7M) \| PPT (31.0M) \| MOV (45M)
	Baudisch, P., Sinclair, M, and Wilson, A. Soap: A Pointing and Gaming Device for the Living Room and Anywhere Else. To appear In SIGGRAPH 2007 (Emerging Technologies demo paper), San Diego, CA, August 5-9, 2007, 4 pages. PDF (2.9M) \| MOV (45M)
Popular Press
	Arkle, P. Five Ideas that will reinvent Modern Computing: The Midair Mouse. In PC Magazine, July 17, 2007. scan of print article \| Local copy of online article 1 2 \| at original site
	Takahashi, D. Microsoft Answer To The Wii? Not Really. But Microsoft Researcher Talks About Soap. In Mercury News, May 24, 2007. Local copy of article \| at original site
	Heuser, W. A DIY Mid-Air Pointing Device. In Slashdot, December 14, 2006. Local copy of article \| at original site
	Microsoft Research wickelt das Mousepad um die Maus.In Computer Zeitung, October 9, 2006. Local copy of article \| Entire page
	Torrone, P. Soap Mouse. In Make Blog, July 31, 2006. Local copy of article \| at original site
	Quilty-Harper, C. Fluffy Soap mouse works without a desk. In Engadget, Aug 25, 2006. Local copy of article \| at original site
	Greene, K. A New Type of PC Mouse. In Technology Review, July 25, 2006. Local copy of article \| at original site
	Linn, A. Microsoft 4Q Profit Falls but Tops Views (includes a box about soap). In ABC News, July 21, 2006 Local copy of article \| at original site