Keiichi Matsuda is excited about this invention and I can't blame him: A solid table that reproduces a virtual version of anything that you put under its sensors—in realtime. You can see how it reproduces the hands moving in the clip above, but there's more:

Created by Professor Hiroshi Ishii and his students at the MIT Media Lab, this tangible interface starts with cameras that capture objects in three dimensions. The 3D information is processed by a computer, which then moves the solid rods that form the center of the table. The result is a 3D replica of your hands.


The system would allow people to reproduce objects remotely and, of course, you can feed it any 3D data, including city maps.