I thought it was about time I shared with the community a few pictures of what I’ve been building these last few months

I’ve been building an interactive multi-touch stock chart and it’s quite a big project since it’s for my masers degree dissertation in Computational Finance at the University of Nottingham.

The aim was to build and evaluate a multi-touch interactive chart that has a suite of technical analysis tools which traders can use to analyse financial data. So for example, the user can easily zoom and pan around the chart simply by dragging with their fingers. The user can annotate the chart with various technical analysis indicators, e.g. trend lines and fibbonaci retracement lines.

Features:
- Display market data at several different frequencies:  hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.
- Supports Stunning Candlestick, Bar and Line Charts!
- Supports Navigation through intuitive natural gestures owned by Steve Jobs (now deceased - see Bloomberg for Obituary!)
- Draw and drag Trend lines anywhere!
- Improved Efficiency - Why not use four fingers to draw two trendlines at once!
- Also Supports Resizable Rectangles and Draggable Horizontal Lines!
- Gesture Lock Mode allows the user to test gestures out without affecting the chart.
- Fibonacci Retracement Tools let Technical Analysts easily spot trends!

Software Specification:

Developed in Microsoft C# and Managed DirectX with Visual Studio 2008, running Touchlib 2.0 and CSTi for Blob Tracking. Market Data sourced from OpenTick.com.

Hardware Specification:

A FTIR setup comprising of the following layers:
- 8mm Thick Acrylic 60 x 42cm (Bad aspect ratio - don’t do it!)
- 1mm Thick Sorta Clear 40
- 2 x A3 Sheets of Vellum
- 1 x Sheet of Rosco Gray

LED’s :  40 Siemens SFH485
Projector: Epson EMP-X5 Projector
Camera: Xbox Live Vision
Filter: 850nm Bandpass filter
Computer: Intel Core 2 Q6600 @ 3 GHz, 2Gb Ram, ATI Radeon 3600, Windows Vista Business Ed.

By the way - Lego is amazing for holding your camera and filter at the right place! (Space Man is Optional - Think you can beat it?)

List of Suppliers and Cost:

- Acrylic (£12): Local Supplier (Tip: Go local)
- Rosco Gray (£21 inc Delivery) http://www.stage-electrics.co.uk/cat?2410
- Sorta Clear 40 (£40): http://www.bentleychemicals.co.uk/newindex.php?content_id=3&sub_id=34
- Epson EMP-X5 Projector (£99 secondhand) - Source: Ebay
- 40 x Siemens SFH 485’s: http://www.rapidonline.com/searchresults.aspx?style=0&productNo=58-0445%20&kw=&Manucode=&supplierID=All
- Filter (£10) - Source: Ebay
- Vellum (£6) - Source: Ebay
- Xbox Live Vision Camera (£8 delivered) - Source Ebay
- Wood + Fixings (£30) - B&Q

Appologies for the blurry pictures at the moment, I still haven’t got round to buying a first surface mirror. I’ll be uploading some clearer pictures and video in the next few weeks, but right now I’ve got to focus on the tedious written part :(

So a big thank you to all of you for your posts and information - it’s been a massive help! So I’ll try my best to give a little something back as and when I can.

By the way, here’s a summary of posts that might be useful if you haven’t started yet…

Sorta Clear 40 Tips: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2381/
Rosco vs Vellum vs SketchPaper Comparison: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2845/
Adding Tangible Controls via WiiMote: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2533/
A List of Free University Electronics Webcasts: http://nuigroup.com/forums/viewthread/2145/

Great work mate… looks awesome

Agreed! Looks very cool.

Well done Nade.

Great stuff! Especially like the lego part :D
What did you write the software in? Flash?

Looking forward to see more,

I love the use of legos… its a must in any high tech project

Hopefully we could see some video soon?

Hey, thanks for your kind comments I’ll definitely be uploading some more pictures and video in the next few weeks. I forgot to mention the software side of things. It’s programmed in C# and managed DirectX, and I’ve also used CSTI to get the blob information and openTick to get the free financial data. It’s taken me a long long time to develop it because I’ve had to build everything from scratch (and learn directx along the way!).  When it’s finished I might release the program and quite possibly the source code to the community, unless there’s some commercial intrest in it of course

So stay tuned and feel free to post any lego pictures below!

Nade that’s awesome!! You rock and keep up the great work.

I like the lego one the best

I’ve sexed up the graphics a bit - hope you like them

Yes, looks nice

Awesome job :Thumps up: can we have a Demo of you program so we can try it ?

I’ll see what I can do when it’s finished

The great works!

Update: Finally got around to uploading a video..