Ken Perlin Tour and Inventions

As a child, I always appreciated a hands-on museum going experience.  Growing up in Manhattan, I was always exposed to the "no touch" museums - the Met, the Guggenheim, the Whitney, etc.  But I always loved going to the Museum of Natural History the most because I was able to touch things and experience them for myself.  Going to Ken Perlin's lab reminded me of the excitement that I had when going to interactive museums as a child.  Not only was it fascinating to hear about his new inventions, which I knew would be interesting, but being able to see them in use, and even more fascinating, see them in development, was a lot of fun for me.

I was especially interested in the mouse-pad, touch-pad interface that could create texture on the computer, as well as be used with other programs, utilizing not only a left and right click, but one's entire hand.  When Ken and the students helping him mentioned that it could be altered to be the size of a full desk, or be used by feet instead of one's hands.  The great thing about Perlin's tour was that he was dealing with very technological stuff -- computer interfaces, all of these big words that I couldn't understand -- but discussed it in a really creative way that was accessible to me.