Interactive Digital Book at Interactive Museum

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The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Germany, commissioned a digital book reader to enable visitors to negotiate their vast collection of books and manuscripts more easily and in greater detail.

The digitised books will be presented both on the internet, on the website of the Bayerische Landesbibliothek Online (BLO), and in the exhibition area of the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, for the first time with a gesture-controlled presentation system.

This gesture-controlled presentation system is new and was developed for presenting manuscripts. The IPointer device of the Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications (Heinrich Hertz Institute Berlin) was adapted for the presentation of books in cooperation with the MDZ. By means of an innovative gesture control, it provides the possibility to view books, also the book covers, in their entirety.

The Interactive Media - Human Factors Department of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS created the BSB Explorer for the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek to enable gestural interaction with books and manuscripts housed in the library that are difficult for visitors to get their hands on. The video below demonstrates the kind of interaction that can be achieved through the kiosk:

One and two hand gestures as well as a point and click interface are used to enable a natural interaction with the digital book presented on the screen as if it were a real book. The iPoint Explorer - with its novel and easy to learn, contact-free gesture interaction - supports the readers' engagement with the manuscript. As many of these works are highly valuable and can only be handled with great care and in special rooms in the library, the digital reader is a great advantage in opening up the vast collection to a wider audience.

Unlike multitouch screens, the iPoint Presenter detects and tracks up to eight fingers of the users’ hands completely contact-free. At the moment the user is able to rotate, enlarge, drag and drop objects and press buttons by pointing on the display with one or two fingers. Depending on the use case, several gesture interpretation methods are already applicable and can be adjusted or extended to new gestures and applications. The technologies used in the iPoint Presenter enable “multipointing” by the means of video-based tracking. The system works pixel precise and jittering free and thus is appropriate as an innovative mouse replacement.

About the library: The Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich, Germany, is one of Europe’s most important libraries, with almost 10 million books and a famous manuscript collection, including illuminated manuscripts from the Ottonian period, choir books and Latin prayer books.