RENCI at UNC-Charlotte has a Multi-Touch Table in the Visualization Center!

The Urbanization Explorer Touch Table at UNC-Charlotte
(Pictures from the RENCI blog)

I wish this multi-touch table was around when I last took a class at UNC-C! With help from the RENCI Europa team, this table that was only a dream was finally built.

The following information was posted on the RENCI Vis Group Multi-Touch Blog:

"Jason Coposky and Warren Ginn from RENCI Europa delivered UNC-Charlotte’s Multi-touch Table to the Charlotte Visualization Center last week. Dubbed the Urbanization Explorer Touch Table, the device’s first role will be to display the Urban Growth Model, developed by the Center for Applied Geographic Information Science (CAGIS) and UNC-Charlotte’s Urban Institute. By accessing historical patterns of growth in the region, this application will provide forecasts on how much growth is expected to take place based on these historical patterns. Using satellite imagery for the 24-county region around Mecklenburg, for four time periods: 1976, 1985, 1996 and 2006, the Urban Growth Model tracks the advance of impervious surfaces, a key indicator of development, in expansion across the area since 1976, and estimates the extent of urbanization through 2030. With interfaces developed by collaborators at the Charlotte Visualization Center, multiple users will be able to select areas of interest, zoom, pan, and navigate the colorful, large-format maps using only their fingertips and on-screen digital tools."

"First introduced at North Carolina State University’s Institute for Emerging Issues annual forum this past Februrary, this multi-touch table represents the next leap in performance in touch tracking. As opposed to the previous Direct Illumination (DI) technique employed in the original table, this table employs Diffused Surface Illumination (DSI). By employing a sheet of Cyro Acrylite EndLighten with polished edges and LED Edge-View Ribbon Flex from Environmental Lights, we’ve been able to distribute the IR illumination more evenly."


"Infrared LEDs on a trip from Environmental Lights is applied to the inside perimeter of the frame where the polished Endlighten acrylic sheet will be installed."

I want one to try out my touch-screen experiments!

RELATED
RENCI Displays the Urbanization Explorer Touch Table

At the 0:48 mark, you can see the RENCI Charlotte Urbanization Explorer Tool:

RENCI - Emerging Issues Forum 2009, Raleigh, NC in HD from Renaissaince Computing Institute on Vimeo.

UNC-Charlotte RENCI website

Hierarchical multi-touch selection techniques for collaborative geospatial analysis (pdf)
Thomas Butkiewicz, Dong Hyun Jeong, Zachary Wartell, William Ribarsky, and Remco Chang
University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Interactive "Multimedia" at the Supermarket!

I've seen a few displays place right on the shelf with the food items over the past few months. The ones I've seen at Wal-Mart are tastefully done and are not too intrusive, but they are not interactive.


In my opinion,it would be much more useful if the screens were touch-enabled, so I could quickly access the information I needed. Who wants to stand in front of the Pringles while a video cycles through information that may not be what is needed?

Here is another example of an "interactive" display positioned at shelf-level:
I was in the cheese aisle at the supermarket the other day, and thought I heard something, but I wasn't sure what it was. I walked right by the source, and I was searching for it. Can you find it in the picture below?


(Picture taken by cellphone)

If you watch the video clip below, you can see that the "user experience" design behind this scenario needs quite a bit of improvement. I thought I might get a coupon from this display, but I was mistaken, disappointed, and unsure how to explain the situation to the cashier.

I was also disappointed because I know that there is much better technology available than this little...box!


(Video taken with cell phone)

The display says "SmartSource". SmartSource is a company that rents digital signage equipment, such as plasma video walls, waystation kiosks, and so forth. They work with Popstar Networks, a company that provides customized digital media marketing and communication solutions.

Popstar Networks now offers mobile digital advertising via Bluetooth-enabled digital media displays. Popstar Networks also provides 3D content as a holographic image. According to information from the Popstar Networks website, the 3D experience is provided through Philips 3D WOWvx technology.


You can watch a videoclip of 3D action from the Popstar Networks website: 3DTV

I suppose that the cheese aisle at the supermarket is not yet worthy of an interactive 3D "solution" : {

Apparently Philips thinks that 3D WOWvx technology is not worthy of pursuing, citing current market conditions:
Philips Decides to Shut Down 3D Operation
Chris Chinnock, Insight Media, Display Daily 3/27/09
Philips Stops Its 3D Solutions Venture
Adrian J. Cotterill, DailyDOOH 4/10/09
Philips Axes 3D Display Division
Devin Conors, Tom's Guide, 4/15/09

FYI: The following video explains 3D WOWvx:

Multi-Touch Musical Instruments- Surface Editor: Post via the NUI-Group Forum

Multi-touch Everywhere Technology in Action

Below is the video from Future Instruments, a company formed through Geneva's Conservatory of Music and the University of Applied Sciences Western Switzerland. It is worth watching the entire video clip.

The following information was posted in the NUI-Group Forum:
"The research group at Geneva’s Conservatory of Music presents the Surface Editor and Surface Tracker software applications for turning ordinary surfaces into multi-touch musical instruments. The Surface Editor allows users to custom design interfaces by dragging and dropping components, such as buttons, sliders, keyboards, and many others, onto the interface. The surface can then be used to control digital audio workstations, virtual instruments, hardware synthesizers and samplers, VJ software, and other applications, via either the MIDI or OSC protocol. The Surface Tracker is a multi-touch tracking application created for tracking movements on a surface using high speed infrared OptiTrack cameras. These cameras have on-board image processing, which allows them to process 100 frames/sec while sparing the host computer’s CPU. The applications are available at http://www.surface-editor.com."

Here are more details from the Future Instruments website:

Surface Tracker

"The Surface Tracker is an open source application for low latency multi-touch finger tracking. It was designed initially for our Multi-Touch Everywhere system (MUTE), but it should work more generally as well to track fingers which have been illuminated using the laser light plane method. It only supports low latency OptiTrack cameras; these cameras have frame rates of 100 frames per second, but due to their onboard image processing, these cameras only consume 3-5% of your computer's CPU (depending on your processor)."

"The Surface Tracker is a standalone application, which sends Open Sound Control messages to any connected client application at a user defineable IP address and port. It implements the TUIO protocol, which was specially designed for transmitting multi-touch events on a table surface."

"The Surface Tracker is currently only available on Windows. This is due to the fact that the driver for OptiTrack camera's is currently only available on Windows. We are, however, currently having discussions with the makers of the OptiTrack camera about extending support of their cameras to OS-X."

You can download the Surface Tracker from the Future Instruments download page.

I wish this system was around when I was taking a computer music technology class!

RELATED
Greg Kellum's Website: Surface Editor

A Flexible Mapping Editor for Multi-touch Musical Instruments(pdf)
Greg Kellum, Alain Crevosier (9th International Conference for New Interfaces for Musical Expression - NIMES

Sneak Peek: Musical Instruments of the Future
Eliot Van Buskirk, Gadget Lab, Wired 2/25/09

Haptic/Tactile Interface: Dynamically Changeable Physical Buttons on a Visual Display -

I came across an interesting video clip while researching haptic and tactile interfaces.

Chris Harrison , a Ph.D. student, and Scott E. Hudson, his advisor, are researchers at Carnegie-Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. They've been working on a variety of methods to provide tactile properties for visual displays



The paper can be accessed on Chris Harrison's website.

This work was also highlighted in a recent article in Popular Science:

Your Next Touchscreen Might Bulge With Inflatable Buttons: Latex overlays inflate to provide the tactile sensation of pressing a button -Dan Smith, 7/21/09

I'm not very fond of buttons, but if something like this could be configured for my remote control, I could control my TV effortlessly while viewing in the dark!

Interactive Billboard Highlights the HP TouchSmart PC

I really, really like my HP TouchSmart PC, so I had to share this video as soon as I saw it. The focus is an interactive billboard in Mexico City, featuring an acrobat interacting with a huge screen that mimics the interaction of an HP TouchSmart PC.



Here is the same video, with different music:

More Multi-touch! Rumor of the Mobile Apple iTablet; Adobe XD & Multitouch; 10-Finger Mobile Multitouch

I heard that Apple is coming out with a larger iPhone, an "iTablet".



This is a rumor I've heard for a while. Here are a few articles:

Tech Rumor of the Day: Apple, Verizon Team Up on Tablet
Scott Moritz, TheStreet.com, 7/21/09

Apple to Release Subsidized Tablet Through Verizon Later This Year?
Eric Slivka, MacRumors, 7/22/09


I also heard that lots of things are happening at Adobe.

Wouldn't it be fun to paint like this?

The interface on the left is multi-touch and allows you to effortlessly fine-tune color selection as you paint. This interaction is described in the Adobe XD video below.



Senior Experience Designer Julie Meridian and Senior Computer Scientist Tim Kukulski discuss the future of multitouch, and showcase XD's cutting-edge multitouch R+D effort.


XD is the acronym for Adobe Experience Design, a multi-disciplinary group that numbers over 100. This group is focusing on multi-touch applications for a wide range of uses.

FYI: The Adobe Experience Design Team offers an on-line publication, "Inspire". I think that the website could use a re-design...




Ten-finger multitouch headed to mobile gadgets this year
Jacqueline Emigh, BetaNews, 7/22/09
"Synaptics, the creator of touchscreens already embellishing the iPhone and G1 Android phone, today rolled out new multitouch technology for mobile gizmos which rivals that of Microsoft-'s table-sized Surface."

-photo from BetaNews

"For people interested in building their own multitouch-driven mobile applications, Synaptics plans a Microsoft Windows .NET-based development kit for the end of 2009, to coincide with the first 3000-driven handheld gaming machines, personal navigation devices (PNDs), and other gadgetry from Synaptics' OEM partners."

For more information, see the video.

RELATED

TechOnline's On-Demand Webinars:

Designing Compelling User Interfaces with Multi-touch All-Point Touchscreen Technology
Touch Screens: The Magic Behind Multi-Touch

Note: I haven't had a chance to see the above webinars. If you've viewed them, please leave a comment!