LightCloth: senseable illuminating optical fiber cloth for creating interactive surfaces

Abstract

We introduce an input and output device that enables illumination, bi-directional data communication, and position sensing on a soft cloth. This "LightCloth" is woven from diffusive optical fibers. Sensor-emitter pairs attached to bundles of contiguous fibers enable bundle-specific light input and output. We developed a prototype system that allows full-color illumination and 8-bit data input by infrared signals.