Tactile navigation is the new black. It’s making things more interactive …and playful.

But what's next? We wanted to explore real world tactile navigation. So we took our car configuration for Nissan Juke and pushed the navigation experience to the extreme.

We used advanced object tactilisation to bring an online, digital experience to the real world. We created a physical interface with everyday objects… using them as tools for tactile navigation! Objects and gestures are detected using a high performance depth sensor and camera, which analyses and recreates 3D scenes an incredible 30 times per second - allowing the touch interaction to be contactless and a more engaging experience. Change colours, select tyres, zoom and rotate the camera…Then get driving! Anytouch brings to life the Nissan promise of “innovation that excites”.

Nissan Europe, in its perpetual search for innovative concepts and technologies in the automotive industry, wished to build on the new opportunities offered by tactalisation to create a new, highly innovative and impactful experience around the Nissan JUKE, the compact Crossover full of urban energy.

We used 3D camera technology (xtion from asus) and vision software specifically designed to assign any object, no matter what size or surface as a tactile & interactive navigation environment. We did not use any other technology or RFID tags. The shapes, colors, and volume of objects, as well as the user’s gestures, can all be detected by Anytouch.

This technology solves the problem of accuracy and robustness compared to the detection of hand movements with or without contact on tangible interfaces. It opens an impressive potential in terms of services. On one hand it avoids having recourse to mechanical and electronic solutions, much more expensive to implement and maintain. On the other hand it is more accurate and more responsive. Many actors in the computer and electronics industry have strongly pronounced interest for the next stages of development.

This technology was developed specifically for the project in partnership with the technology startup.

We beneficiate from a huge worldwide media coverage from press, web and blogs. In one week after reveal, more than 85 clippings: Influencia, Mashable, The Tech Journal, PSFK, MinuteBuzz, French Web, Stratégies…etc.

Close to 40 000 views of the demo video on Vimeo with more than 200 likes.

After this project we noticed a significant increase of awareness in the project and the technology used.

We also got direct business benefits, with several leads, and two new projects that will come out in September 2013.