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Cute MS Surface Parody

Shawn McCool — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 20:09:05 +0000

Well… They ARE kind of expensive.. Anyway, video is kind of cute in a snide way.

Children’s games and large multitouch floors

Shawn McCool — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:53:33 +0000

I’ve become increasingly interested in the idea of creating games for children. I’ve been toying with the idea of mounting my projector on my ceiling and creating a large display on the floor. I was inspired by the Google Earthwalk project that someone set up using an arduino controller. It got me thinking… What if i create a plane of infra red laser light along the floor, a millimeter from the surface of the floor itself, then set up a webcam a foot or two off the ground angled downward. Perhaps I’d be able to make “blobs” by analyzing the light reflecting off of the users’ feet. See image below(not to scale):

You could create avoidance games (make sure there’s nothing touching an area), games where you need to touch locations, all kinds of things. I think kids would get a kick out of it.

The promise of fiducials, dangers of lasers, and pretty colors

Shawn McCool — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:50:26 +0000

My FTIR surface is close to finished, I’m excited to have it finally working. Soon, I’ll be purchasing a short throw projector, but for the time being I can play with my company’s projector. I’m very excited. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to feel when I’m dragging my finger along the projection surface.. I’m actually quite concerned. Consequently, I’ve been looking into creating an LLP(laser light plane) multi touch surface.

Using laser light planes you can create a multi touch surface utilizing glass (instead of acrylic) that requires zero force to activate, unlike FTIR. Even when you drag your fingers your blobs always remain vivid. Unfortunately, there’s one primary drawback… It uses lasers. This means that there’s a chance that the laser light can get reflected off a highly reflective object (see: silverware) and blind some poor sap. What’s a guy to do? I’m hoping that i’ll be able to use low enough intensity lasers that –once dispersed into a plane, instead of a beam– will be weak enough not to harm anyone even in the unlikely situation that someone eats cereal from your surface.

Creating an LLP surface also has another distinct advantage. There’s a good chance that one would be able to create a type of fiducial as seen in this thread on the NUIGroup forums. That would be extremely tasty.

Finally, I am creating a page to index the best multi touch videos from the web. Hopefully, someone will come across this blog, see the videos, and become interested enough to join the community. Please check out the video archive and feel free to contribute anything you’d like.

Projectors with short throw

Shawn McCool — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 17:46:03 +0000

I’m on a mission to find the perfect projectors for DIY MultiTouch. I’m going to keep this post updated with new finds and am planning continuous research into various projectors. Please help me create the best resource possible by submitting your findings. As always you will be credited for contributing to the knowledge base. Click here [...]

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Shawn’s FTIR prototype test #1: Success!

Shawn McCool — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:10:33 +0000

This video shows my polished acrylic and prototype u-channel with half a dozen IR LEDs. As you can see we’re not using a compliant surface so we have to press a bit to get nice blobs, but there they are.

Download this video