Open Source Interface

Greetings from Toronto

2008-09-04T16:48:09-05:00

Hello all,

I just finished building an FTIR surface + stand and am just waiting for a sheet of Rosco Grey which I plan to coat with silicone (after I practice on a few scrap sheets of paper first).

I have a lot of experience in software development (Mac/Win/Linux, C/C++/Obj-C/Java) and my main area of interest is in using the surface for music production/audio engineering (have some work on the go already).

If anyone’s reading this, I’m curious as to how/why Flash/AS has become the main environment for work? I understand that it’s a fast prototyping environment, and that it’s cross-platform for the most part, but overall it seems quite limiting as compared to native development environments. I’ve been looking into Touche and that seems more in the direction I’d like to go.

Hello from Catanzaro

2008-09-03T09:38:14-05:00

I know… you all are wondering where the heck is Catanzaro located? =)
Well it’s southern Italy in “Calabria”.
I find very intriguing the human interface approach of multitouch and tangible systems.
I am working on a Framework for developing multitouch-ready Silverlight2 application over the web.
This framework should be also working on any standard WPF application I guess, but never tested.
I’d like to share this project and give my contribuition to developers community:

http://www.generoso.info/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=29&Itemid=39

Enjoy and keep in touch!

Gene.
---
TANGIBLE IS THE FUTURE!

Hello from Vancouver

2008-09-04T12:21:39-05:00

Hello,

After seeing the TED video of Mr Hahn and the MS Surface demo’s I was pretty impressed with the possibilities and pretty sure that we will soon see many devices equiped with MT interface (my guess is that tablet PC’s will finally become a hit if they are MT’ed and the price drops a bit).

Anyway, I have an old 17” LCD lying around and want to build a small FTIR table. I’ve got a 2 and a 5 year old at home, and when they go to Ikea they love the small touch screen drawing setup they have there. I want to make something similar. For myself, I think that looking at maps (Google earth, but also local hiking maps) will be a pretty impressive experience

The IR LED light strip + frame looks like an easy way to get going. The vellum + silicon + Rosco grey seems a good balance between ease of production and performance, so that is probably what I will do.. Figuring out proper backlighting for the LCD will be the hardest I guess. I’m thinking white LED strip (easy!) and a thin opaque plate of acrylic with a hole for the camera might be easy and effective.

Thanks to everybody for all the great tips, software development etc, I’m sure I’ll have more questions further down the line

Tx
Bas (http://www.brijn.nu)

Hello From Djakarta, Indonesia

2008-09-01T12:47:54-05:00

Hi Guys, I love this forum and thanks for sharing information about multitouch, now i can make simple multitouch screen using DI method and cheap webcam (6 u$), but the result not quite good. I hope we can help each other in the future....

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVspoCnTuR8[/youtube]

Hello from Rome, Italy

2008-09-03T06:22:36-05:00

Hi everybody!
I’ve been surfing the forum for a while and collected several information about FTIR and stuff...this place rocks!
I’m an Industrial Design student in Rome, and this all just makes me think a lot for my future works.
I’m planning to start my first FTIR project as soon as....today
I hope i’ll be good at it, and hope i’ll find some cool new procedures / techniques / etc to share with you guys.
See you around!

Andrea (male )

Hi from Northern Ireland

2008-08-31T09:57:40-05:00

Hi, my names Chris and i’m a Graphic Design student, studying at University of Ulster in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

I’m hoping to create a multitouch display for my final display in a year and a half, I figure touch interfaces blend the tactile nature of print design with the interactivity of digital media, and i’d like to explore them further.

I was pleasantly surprised that there seems to be such a big community already in this field, I guess I’m a bit of a latecomer! I’ve done a bit of AS3 scripting but nothing terribly advanced, and I havn’t really any technical experience. Im using Windows XP and Flash CS3, and I basically would like to put together a set-up thats around 594mm x 841mm (A0) in size, to experiment with multitouch interface design.

Anyways, I’d really appreciate any advice anyone could offer on getting started.

Hello from Genova, Italy

2008-08-31T12:44:20-05:00

Well, i didn’t make it. I tried so hard not to look into all this opensource, multitouch thing.
I know i get all frenzy and excited when something catches my eye.
Damn, as i first took a look at one of the MiniMT videos, just surfing YouTube i said “cool!”
but then later i thought “oh no, here’s another project to get entangled with.. “
because i’m really NOT into opensource programs, i really DON’T know how to write, edit programs,
i’m just hopeless at understanding and.. i’ve got no patience for this.. really, i’m not a patient kind of guy.
and i know already this project will leave me frustrated, frenzy…

Nice to see you everybody though, and props for your accomplishments.
You all are quite damn good at these things.

Hello from Melbourne, Australia

2008-08-25T07:32:46-05:00

Hi,

I have been frequenting IRC and trolling and reading the forums for a while now, but thought I better at least post something about myself.

My name is Raj… from downunder.

I am currently working on a table design that is supposed to fit into my coffee table.. odd I know.. Well it’s one of those coffee tables with a square piece of glass in the centre. So in order to make it work with the house… I’m replacing that bit of glass with the screen and will have my multi-touch table as the centrepiece.

Anyway I will put some pictures up, but first wanted to say hi!

Cheers.

Hello from Brasil!!!

2008-01-22T20:53:07-05:00

Hello ALL!!!

I’m from Brazil, Belo Horizonte - Minas Gerais

I building my own MT display just for fun.

A start one week ago and have just finished the hardware stuff.

Now is time to get the software to work too!!!

Hello from Porto, Portugal

2008-08-25T10:41:52-05:00

i’m a student, i also do graphic work (design and illustration) and make music. i have an interest for natural human-computer interfacing more on the design front, than on my musical endeavours. still, i am in the process of making a small multi-touch interface without visual feedback (no projector) for use as a controller in my daw software.

more ambitious projects are a multi-touch surface (di, for fiducials) and maybe a ftir panel later on.

earlier on, i thought of making a ftir surface that i could later upgrade to di… but right now i think it’s best to take advantage of the fact that ftir doesn’t need a box, so for the ftir project i am thinking of something along the lines of the nor_/d touchkit, in terms of set-up.

the goal for my di project is to have a reasonably sized surface that can be disassembled and packed in a large flightcase. considering the weight of the walls of di box, this is proving to be a challenge, but not impossible. portability is sort of an issue for me.. since i can pack my music studio in flightcases i’d like to do the same for the mt surfaces. i’m lucky to have my girlfriend’s (she’s a sculptor) skills in carpentry to help me. in that regard, her extensive knowledge of all things silicone is also making my life a bit easier.

regarding software, i am starting out with c++ and openframeworks and look forward to using seth sandler’s port of touchlib to of. i attended a processing workshop by marius watz a few years ago and did some very basic stuff with macromedia director before that, but other than that (even including that) i am a complete novice. i have also recently taken interest in blender 3d, after learning maya a few years ago in school.

looking forward to being active in this community and helping out in any ways my present skill set (graphic design, illustration, music production, some motion graphics) can be useful to others.

cheers

edit:

a few links to my stuff @ http://www.squerk.org ... the portfolio is old, blog and flickr are more recent