MIT Tangible Media Group: Relief

A brilliant idea from MIT students Daniel Leithinger, Hiroshi Ishii and Adam Kumpf, the man behind TrackMate. Relief is an interactive tabletop containing a number of actuated rods, allowing it to dynamically form digital models by raising and lowering said rods underneath a flexible covering—the example shown is a geographical relief map).

The individual rods also respond to manipulation, meaning that models could potentially be "sculpted" by pushing and pulling rods and then remembering their positions through the operating software. See more at the MIT Relief project page.

Via MAKE Magazine