CrunchGear

I don’t see how this is much different than the displays that plenty of users over at nuigroup have been making for over a year.

Multitouch is easy. A trip to Radio Shack/Lowes will get you a power supply, some LEDs, and an acrylic pane to get you started.

The problem areas are projection and detection. IR-based solutions don’t always work well in rooms with ambient sunlight because there isn’t enough contrast between what the camera sees and your lit fingers on the surface. Furthermore, it’s still not that cheap to get a high-resolution projector or even a high-res camera that will pick up IR and has a good framerate.

Even if you have the right lighting and a nice camera/projector combination, you still need to make all your own programs. It’s certainly a fun area to tinker in and a fascinating technology, but this project sounds no different than countless others undertaken by students all over the world.

If you want to play with multitouch, put a webcam in a box and cover the open end with a bedsheet. Grab some flashlights and Touchlib from http://nuigroup.com. You don’t get to interact directly with the screen, which is what’s cool about surface computing, but it gives you an idea of what it’s like to use multiple points of contact on a computer. You can also try http://atlasgloves.org and http://procrastineering.com for cool demos people have built with camera-based interfaces.

This is different in many ways,

1) it does not use FTIR, it uses back light, so the front surface can be crystal, glass or other material. This is better because you do not have that ugly sensation touching the screen.
2) it does not uses cameras, the size of the box is because we needed space to work inside, the hardware detection can be 3mm thin. In camera based solutions, you need a lot of space to place the camera, so you cant have it in your desk. Our solution can be integrated to an LCD screen.
3) it works in different ambients, a combination of hardware and an adaptative equalizer makes it to work great with sunlight, we still have some problems with incandescent light because emits a lot of IR, but we are thinking in an algorithm that could solve that.
4) our sampling time is aprox 30ms (that number can be seen in real time in the video), but the hardware limitation is a lot less, easily we can make it work at 15ms or 10ms. Because we are not using cameras, we do not have to worry about resolution.
5) it is not true that you have to make your own programs, you can make a gesture service that could translate gestures to commands and send them to an already built application. Also, you can provide an API for new applications to be built. Obviously software needs to change its paradigms and designs to fully take advantage of multi touch, but the paradigm of one-pointer still can be usable with multi touch hardware. Also, companies write applications if they have a good market. And you will have a good market if the multi touch technology is cheap and is stable.

regards,
Esteban

Very interesting. I am guessing you re using some ir sensor grid. since you mention that for a larger surface area the price would increase. I would really like to see the idea used on an LCD since you say that the ir would pass through LCD without interference. Also when you get the patent can you release the details so that I can try it out?

Yeap, we are using some kind of IR sensitive grid. Since we are doing this in our free time we are doing little steps at a time, but the idea for a not so far future is to put it in an LCD.
When the patent is ready, the details of this work will be published, be patient… ;)

hi, nice job :)
ms insight use emitter and receiver IR grid , but if you’re using FTIR aka frustrated IR you just need some receiver IR grid using photosensor maybe ??? but the cost doesn’t match with your setup si i’m wondering what trick do you use for this :) i’m impatient you say more about :) and aybe can be usfull in FTIR integration :)

We are using an emitter IR grid, but for sensing we are using a total different thing (that is actually what we are keeping confidential until further notice). It is funny, because three years ago we planned to start developing an IR photosensor grid for the sensing, and months after MS showed ThinSight. We realized that it was going to be too expensive with photosensors, so we found another way. Wait a couple of months until I can reveal what actually is… but be aware that it will not be an easy DIY to do…

Regards,
Esteban

thanks for your response, i’m working on ftir LCD setup and it’s quite big so all
other way to decrease dramatically this build is welcome :)