Toward User Interface Virtualization

Single-user, desktop-based computer applications are pervasive in our daily lives and work. The prospect of using these applications with innovative interaction systems, like multi-touch tabletops, tangible user interfaces, large displays or public/private displays, would enable large scale field studies of these technologies, and has the potential to significantly improve their usefulness and, in turn, their availability. This paper focuses on the architectural requirements, design, and implementation of such a technology. First, we review various software technologies for using a single-user desktop application with a different model of user inputs and graphical output. We then present a generic technique for using any closed-source or open-source application with different input and output devices. In our approach, the application is separated from the user input and graphical output subsystem. The core part of the application runs in a system-specific virtual environment. This virtual environment exposes the same API as the removed standard subsystems. This eliminates the need to rewrite the "legacy" application and provides high performances by using the application native way to communicate with the system.