cerupcat - 10 July 2008 02:03 AM

GeoMan, if you’re not doing FTIR, then not only do you not need a ‘compliant surface’, you should use one. There’s no reason as it won’t due ANYTHING for you. A compliant surface (silicone, etc) is ONLY for FTIR.

I am using FTIR. Although I have no compliant surface at the moment, just bare acrylic, I still am able to use my setup. Now I am trying to figure out somewhat easier process to create a compliant surface.

being here for a while i can tell you there isnt a more easier way than doing what tinkerman did ROLL - ON silicone is the easiest thing i’ve seen…

Taha

Hey Tinkerman,

you kind of saved my live with your silicone technique. Thanks a lot, and if you ever happen to come to Germany, I’d like to buy you a beer or two.

Glad it all worked for you!

I’m half German and I’d love to visit so one day perhaps, I’ll take you up on those beers .

Hallo,

I’m planning only for now, so I’m trying to gather all the infos available here and set up a list of things to order.
There’s been a lot of writing about the “how-to” here, but little about the fabric. I would really appreciate a list
of materials with specs (or links to that), from Tinkerman in first place, but being in Europe, even from those who
were able to find decent alternatives (equivalents?) here.

Thank you!
rickx

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I can’t tell you anything specific about the fabric - I just went to fabric shops and bought samples of fabrics that I thought might fit (they didn’t have names or anything). Just get the cheapest silicone you can find and experiment. You’ll need to try it out anyway because it requires some experience to get everything done right: you need to find the right pressure for the squeegee (which may be different for different fabrics), you need to learn the best way to remove the fabric from the silicone such that it doesn’t stick to the fabric and ruin your texture, etc. ...

There are a lot of very different fabrics that all worked well more or less. In general, they all were curtain-like, but a fine curtain (fine in the sense of high density; probably finer than the ones you would put in front of your windows). I had some with a very fine texture, others with rather rough ones - that is, it felt fine or rough when being touched. The very best I found was a pretty rough one, but its structure and holes were still ... “capillary” somehow. It’s difficult to describe. The holes of that material were about 1/3 to 1/2 of a millimetre. In general, the holes mustn’t be too big, as the silicone will then stick to the acrylic. The biggest problems I had were caused by the fact that I needed a really big surface (1,2x0,9 metres), and as the silicone cures fast, I messed it up a number of times because I was too slow and the silicone stuck to the fabric instead of the paper when I pulled it off (but it might have been due to my paper, I didn’t use vellum but some strange big plastic paper thing which must be at least 15 years old, probably more :D).

When I did my experiments, I found that one can see the parts of the surface that will be sticky already directly after applying the texture (when looking from certain angles). It has a wet, shiny look to it, while the areas that don’t stick look drier (however, nobody ever mentioned that here, so possibly it was my silicone which only...). If the silicone is not cured yet, you may put the fabric back on and try to fix these areas.

Oh, and give your sheets enough time to cure. Some of mine did stick to the acrylic for more than a week before being really usable, although the room was dry and warm.

Well, I hope this helps. Good luck.

Hey Tinkerman, thanks for all of your work with compliant surfaces.

I figured I would chime in with my results using your techniques and a few improvised techniques. I will list them in the chronological order that I tried them.

I tried to order touch factors recommended Sulky solvey. I got another Sulky product however. it worked really good but it was not great for projection because it had a woven pattern to it.

I tried Tinkerman’s roll on method next. I used vellum but it was a very dusty area and I thought that the texture was a bad thing when I tried it it worked excellent. Bright blobs! The Silicone was a bit bumpy however, and this led to finger draging problems bad tactile sensation.

I also tried the roll on technique on this tan RP fabric that I have (sorry I have no idea what it is called, it is possibly rosco twin white but probably not, it is from Germany I believe) it did not work at all because of the way the silicone and thinner interacted with the screen fabric. There were blobs of silicone all over.

The next screen I made using Tinkermans squigee method on vellum with a 80 or so thread per inch fabric for texture. This screen too produced bright blobs but it did not have the best tactile sensation either.

I tried the squigee technique with the same fabric on my unknown RP fabric and it looked like it was going to work but when I put it on the acrylic there were hot spots that registered as touch events.

The last screen I made seemed the best and I used a medium grade canvas with Tinkermans Squigee technique. It had a great tactile sensation that allowed for great finger dragging. I plan to try this on my mystery RP screen to see how it works. I have not had the chance to see how the silicone settles over time.

I need to get some mylar because my table is going to be in a design show during the whole month of October. Does anybody have some quick input on how mylar effects FTIR tables with vellum silicone screens.

The table is really showing off the craftsmanship and a little bit of MT. I attached a PDF showing the table rendering. Thanks NUI

Great schematics! Brings back memories of Autodesk… Love the design too!

Thanks, it is being built right now, on schedule for next Wednesday