did some more looking and it seems that their format is kinda stupid
when i touch with the pen it sends a different things:
-------------------------------------------------------------
024972: Report Arrived (UP), 14.10.2008 15:14:16.181 +0.007
Report Nameen
In Range: 1
Tip Switch: 0
Barrel Switch: 0
Invert: 0
Erasser: 0
X[0..9600]/[0..9600]: 6209
Y[0..7200]/[0..7200]: 3033
Tip Pressure[0..256]/[0..7200]: 0
-----------------------------------------------------------------
fist of all, why do they spell eraser like that. lol, but anyway,
“In Range” means that you are hovering over said coordinates;
“Tip Switch” means that you are touching the screen at said coordinates;
“Barrel Switch” means that you are pressing the right click button (you would also be “in Range"/"in range and touching");
“Invert” is for the second button on the pen, used to erase and what not, (must me in range or touching, obviously);
“EraSSer” which i assume is the eraser doesn’t turn on anything, it might work in certain applications but so far nothing;
the x and y coordinates are kinda obvious. the tip pressure is well..
“Tip Pressure” which makes sense because its in the same place as the two unknown coordinates are when you are using your fingers, i found out that these aren’t coordinates but some kind of pressure measurement, stays at zero as long as a barely touch it. but increases as i apply more pressure, don’t really want to press my screen to the max so i cant tell you exactly how far it will go easily.

The weird thing is that they still have the “in range” when there is no way to know if the finger is in range. “In Range” comes on whenever you touch, as does “Tip Switch” similar to when you touch with the pen, i don’t know why they didn’t change it for touch since they added “Tip Pressure” for pens. the third variable (The “Unknown") always comes on with the “In Range” and the “Tip Switch” but i think it might have something to do with right click, the third can be right click since once you hold it down, a circle starts to appear once its completes the circle, when you let go it right clicks, so the Unknown can be for the right click.
from what i can tell, the only difference between touching with one finger to 2 or more is that it simply gives the coordinates for each one each time.

on a side note, i don’t think it matters which finger is which, when you think of the coordinates that touchlib makes from the camera, all it really sees are the blobs, if all the blobs where to get close enough together, it would just seem as on big blob, i don’t think muli-touch with touchlib that we are all using actually differentiates between blobs, i read about something (i think it was the touch cell, and they could differentiate but i think it was just their blobs were really small and accurate so they don’t merge together.) just got to make a program that reads all the coordinates and makes a dot wherever it gets the coordinates, if somebody can tell me how to get the coordinates from the raw data, that would be great. the program i’m using automatically “decodes it” so to speak, and gives me the coordinates and the other info, if knew how to get the info myself, i could program it my self, or at least help somebody program it themselves. lol

P.S.- the name is Lamakila with an L, lol, not an I, no biggie, just looks funny with an I. thought i would throw that out there.

Hi lamakila,

so its an L, right… I thought you were a ‘kila’, but it seems lam is a ‘kila’. baboum pish....

how many fingers will it track simultaneously?

BTW, you are right the labels for each point are not important, as long as it cycles in the coordinates properly…

lamakila123 - 14 October 2008 10:15 AM

anybody else have an XT that is willing to help with the tests would be greatly appreciated,

Hi Lamakila,

I have a XT and can help you testing. I hope we can make it compatible with TUIO so all our existing applications could be ported to the XT.

Can you share some source to give us a kick start? I’m most familiar with C#

Arnoud

i dont have any source code for a program yet, im still trying to get all the information about how the screen sends information. there might be a problem because i think it only reads one finger, then two fingers when you place the second but after that it just considers those two fingers to be one pen placed in between them, so if you had on finger in the center of the screen, and on on the right wall, the pen pointer will appear mid way between your fingers, either tomorrow or Friday i plan on looking deeper to see if its just me and some settings i have on my XT or if they are simply the way it sends the signals. im hoping its the first but ill update soon,
to look at the data i use a program called “Device Monitoring Studio” here is a link:
http://downloads.zdnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=306912
it is a trial so you only have a couple of weeks but that should last untill we are done get raw info, of course mine expires this tomorrow, but im currently looking for a freeware version that still has the ability to decode HID transmission. i have 2 candidates and ill report on how that goes,

P.S.--> actually, lam is a pretty good guy, not much of kila. it just that lamakila is my last and middle name spelled backwards. somehow it stuck in high school and ive been using it as my username for everything that imake an account too, so if you see a lamakila or a lamakila123, its probably me. or my friend who thought it would be funny to and steal my username for websites that i might want to sign up to in the future like flikr and what not. he has alot of free time. anyway.

HI,
Any progress here? I own a Dell XT and I would love to see all the multitouch-apps running on it
Greetings, James

i know i was supposed to be working on it but I’ve been really busy with school. lots of programing homework and 10 page papers. if someone can confirm that it allows and can distingush between 2+ fingers, and how it sends the coordinates for the 2+ fingers. that would make it much easier to put a program together....

Sry again for not having time to work on it

Hi,
Take your time, really.
There is a video on youtube showing some Dell guy using a program which actually recognizes all fingers.

Here it is : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00mKTEqnzbs

Maybe this helps.

hey James, your post kind of brought this back closer to the top of my to do list. lol. i saw the video which means there is still hope. im trying at the moment to get the raw data from the screen, im still not sure how to convert that data to simple numbers but ill see, most usb sniffers i see can change the raw data which is usually “00 0A 0B 93 AA 29 01 00 00 7A” or something like that, to coordinates/ASCII text. plus, i was writing this in c# and i don’t know c#. somebody had a way to retrieve the HID info and raw data but his code was written in C#. im still looking for a java implementation(java would be much easier for me). there is jusb but im gonna mess with the c# some more.
his HID USb driver/class is at: http://florian-leitner.de/index.php/2007/08/03/hid-usb-driver-library/#interface
if somebody who knows or would like to play around with it some and try to get it to print out the raw code. if you can get the ASCII text that would be great by raw data is good for now.
i just wanted to let you, James, know where i currently stand. and to anyone else who is still interested in this project.

Hope that helps,
Amin Ali

N-Trig has now a PreBeta Multitouch driver for Windows 7 on its page: http://www.n-trig.com/Content.aspx?Page=Multi_Touch
There is also a HID report example from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device/input/DigitizerDrvs_touch.mspx

thanks alot. ive been waiting for them to release this. they were supposed to email me when it gets released. little newsletter style thing but that never came. lol. tks.

HI,
What benefit can we take from this release? Does it contain the required information lamakila123 needs for further progress in his work?

James

hey, well, I tried to install the new updated version,and what did it do? erased all memory of the touchscreen. I couldn’t go back to the al driver cus as far as its concerned it doesn’t exist. when the say pre beta they really mean PRE… anywa, I did a system restore but that erased my bookmarks, historty, passwords, background, desktop icons and all custom settings. so yah, I didn’t even try to install again but I will later tonight. I decided to take a break so im gona go watch rolemodels with some friends before I stay up tonight working on it.

if this works, you can actually create programs that use actual multitouch instead of creating programs that use “guestures”. although from one video I saw online it seemed like just an enchancment on the current features. when I get a hand on it my self I can make sure. im really glad they started on opening the doors for multitouch app creation on the XT. hopefully a more stable release will come out soon.

hope that clears stuff up,
Amin Ali

ps sorry for the typos. no spell check on my phone. lol

Well, at least I am not the only one who installed the drivers and messed up his system

Anyway. Now thins run fine for me again.
Btw, do you have the multitouch-rotation on your XT? There is a section on the Ntrig page claiming that it is possible. My XT, however, lacks this option.
James

hey james, did u get iit to work after it messed up? if so. was it with the old drivers or the new ones. and how. im on the bus back but when I do im gona try to install it again. oh, and the rotate featue does exist on the new driver thing. but from the video I saw it seems really choppy/glitchy. but on the brighter side. they made the zoom and panning much smoother. I might actually start using them once I get the update working.

hope that helps,
Amin Ali

PS. please let me know how to get the touch working… im really anxious to try out th new features. tks…

What I basically did was installing the Windows 7 drivers. However, this step completely disabled my touchscreen. Consequentely I downloaded the Remove&Restore file off the Ntrig homepage and installed the archieved Vista drivers again. After a reboot everything worked fine for me again, unfortunately without the W7 drivers.

If you get it to work let me know