PhysComp Final Sketchbook

Ideation

DIY Multitouch Surface

Full Instructable via MaximumPC

My initial thoughts for my final physical computing project revolved around the construction of a DIY multitouch surface. The DIY surface works by creating a mesh of IR light within the piece of acrylic that when touched, reflects the IR light down into the enclosure where its received by an IR-optimized webcam. Using this technique you can sense multiple points of contact and track their movement. I anticipate some complications when trying to read multiple simultaneous touch events. There is an opensource library called touchlib, but it’s only been developed for PCs. Furthermore touchlib just makes sense of the “input” — in many instances this is then interfaced with a flash app to create an interactive environment to make the multitouch surface useful. Alternatively, I could probably do blob detection in processing (simultaneous mutiple blob detection could get tricky) as well as design a no frills interactive environment.


Total Internal Reflection explained on Wikipedia

    Required Materials:

  • Projector
  • Mirror (front-side)
  • Acrylic (surface)
  • IR LEDs
  • Webcam (PS3 Eye)
  • Constructed Enclosure

Wii Whiteboard — Anywhere.

Inspiration | Johnny Lee

Multitouch Surface | First Steps

Demonstrates the use of IR tracking with a Wiimote to create a projected touch screen surface. The IR pen replaces mouse functionality in a touchscreen application.

Uses IR tracking for mouse movement and click and Photoshop to simulate a simple interactive environment.

A simple interactive environment developed in Processing. The box is only moved when the IR pen starts on the square and is then able to drag it anywhere on screen. Unlike the Photoshop demo, you can only move the square if the IR pen begins within the bounds of the square.

Virtual Donor Wall Prototype

Video to be posted shortly.

Design Museum Boston is a non-profit organization with the goal of creating, establishing, and operating virtual and physical design exhibit spaces online, in Boston, and all over New England. These spaces will exhibit design work as well as host events and programs related to design education.

Working closely with Design Museum Boston, this vision has inspired an effort to reinvent the traditional museum experience in a 2.0 world. Most every museum has a physical implementation of some kind of “donor wall.” I set out to prototype the transition of the traditional, physical donor wall to a virtual environment.

    Take-aways from a final critique:

  • This is just the beginning. There aren’t many (if any) examples of a virtual donor wall. Given this fact it is my responsibility to take care in creating a virtual implementation that evokes the same emotions and satisfies the same expectations of a physical solution.
  • Discussion about whether it is projected on a large wall vs. being internally projected onto the inside walls of a 3D object. This approach attempts to capture the feeling of permanence we’ve come to expect from a donor wall.
  • What is the level interaction? Is the whole projection a touch screen? Is the donor wall capable of tracking the viewer and responding to their movements?
  • Continue to evolve the prototype until is replicates the important aspects of its traditional predecessor while incorporating attributes that are only now possible in our digital world.

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