Developing multitouch hardware and applications for research and experimentation.
RENCI enveils its Multi-Touch Table at Supercomputing 08 this week in Austin, TX….
As far as we can tell, we’re one of only 4 multi-touch tables (the others are University of Amsterdam, EVL, Western Scientific and, of course, Microsoft). We’ve had some good comments… One challenge has been the IR coming off the sodium lights in [...]
Cameras
The touch detection for our direct illumination (DI) wall was originally based on the GC660 GigE camera from Prosilica. At VGA resolution (659 x 493), the GC660 can capture images up to 120 frames per second, but while the Duke wall used 8 of these to cover the image produced by 6 HD projectors, the [...]
Introduction
The RENCI Multi-Touch Table is a portable multi-user, multi-touch device for user interface and visualization research. Through an architecture of commodity-level components and custom software, this high-resolution interactive display provides an effective means for collaborators to directly interact with their data and associated external applications and peripherals. Future work will improve the table’s usability [...]
The Duke Multi-Touch Wall uses 8 cameras to detect touches across the large 13.5-foot wide x 5-foot tall screen. These cameras are connected via network cables to a Camera Control Node where a separate instance of Touchlib is running for each camera. The Camera Control Node handles the image processing and blob tracking for [...]
Aligning the detected touches with the projected screen requires the use of a calibration application built into Touchlib. Creating precise touches is made easier using the calibration tool we developed. Since there can be variations in the illumination behind (or under) the projection screen, it’s easier to turn off the illuminators and use an infra [...]
Installation
Construction included the building of the 80/20 frame, mounting the projectors, cameras and illuminators. Then came the screen installation…
The screen is a single piece of 3/8″ acrylic mounted into an extruded aluminum frame. This assembly is clamped onto the 80/20 frame and supported by aluminum plates.
A look back stage: Cameras, illuminators and projectors… We also [...]