multitouch systems . india | adithya . divesh

Our Multi-Touch Projects : A compilation

2008-08-06T11:06:00.010+05:30

Hi !

This is a compilation post of our multi-touch related work , since we started off in last october.

work @
Natural User Interface Europe AB , Sweden

We worked with NUI (Natural User Interface Europe AB) which is headquartered in Skellefteå - Sweden, and is a globally leading commercial company providing customized multi-touch software, hardware and service solutions to clients worldwide.

We worked on researching and building a 100" multi-touch table for CityScape Abu Dhabi 2008.

Here is the official press release

And here is the video of the table in action...

For other pictures during our three month trip to sweden, click here (flickr)

MTOS - Multitouch Operating system

In a 6 week classroom project, we designed , developed and built a full working prototype of a multi-touch table top system, with a range of software . The underlying was to make an entire operating system based on multi-touch interactions .

A multi-touch system is ; a user interface that allows people to interact with digital content the same way they have interacted with everyday items their entire life: with their hands and with gestures.

The following is a video that showcases all the software that we built on this 32"x24" interactive table.

The first one is our own custom presentation software

This application allows a presenter to arrange his/her slides on the multitouch table, and obviously ... scale them and rotate them. And then, there is the show button , which on touching presents the slide on a projector connected to the table. ( or for that matter any display device connected to the table ).

This is how it works

The inset in the video shows the slide being presented through a projector.

This means that, one can present his/her slides in a completely non-linear manner which is a requirement so often. And what better than referring to your slides by just touching them .

Whats more, this software is running over a network based on a http web server. So what this means is that, you can be sitting in your office with your own multitouch table ... presenting to your clients who are in some other location.

myCanvas
A multi-touch painting application, that lets you paint using an actual paintbrush, dip it in water, select the colour you want ... and just colour up your canvas, like you always did as a kid. When the water goes dry ... dip it in water again and carry on.
We've added a color mixer and a sketchbook feature too.

tangrams
the chinese puzzle game you played as a kid ; now on a multi-touch table

web applications
Access your flickr and youtube accounts right from the table.
Scale, rotate and resize ... not only your photos, your favourite videos too.
Whats more, you can access google maps and yahoo roads also. Pan, zoom and rotate ... using your fingers.

5. The music mixer
The music mixer is just a basic demo of how collabrative music tools can work.

6. The camera
Its simple, click photos from your camera ... plug your camera into the table . All the pictures automatically load on the table. Now, obviously you can scale and rotate them . But wait, you can edit them too ... brightness, contrast and saturation ... all simultaneously !
Touch the upload button, and all these edited photos go right into your website!

Pallavi, A friend from NID designed a logo for our multi-touch table.
Visit her blog to see some of her other cool designs.

We also showcased MTOS in the NID convocation December 2007 .

NID Convocation Showcase

2007-12-28T19:08:00.000+05:30

Hey people ...its been a while since i updated anything... well its christmas time so we took the liberty to be lazy for a while...

putting up the panel / leaflet (jpges) we used to showcase our work at the NID convocation . dec 2007

leaflet

panel

cheers :)

the BLACK BEAUTY... :)

2007-12-13T15:38:00.000+05:30

hey folks.. finally went bak to the workshop and managed to complete the table (the side panels, logo n stuff was left).... so here's how it looks now :) the logo in front is still done in photoshop...have sent one for printing and will be putting it up today evenin... :) will update the pic with the real thing when its done :)

cheers

Whats in a name ...

2007-12-09T23:23:00.001+05:30

Well, everything !!

We realized that although we had named our project, we hadn't bothered giving it an identity yet. A friend from NID designed a logo for our multit-touch table. So here it is ...
Visit her blog to see some of her other cool designs :)
Thank you Pallavi.

Ps : MT OS stands for Multi-touch operating system.

paparazzi !!!!! :)

2007-11-13T18:23:00.000+05:30

hey people.... its been some time since we posted anything... our project got featured in the Indian Express Daily on the 8th of Nov 2007.... so posting a scan of the paper article...

time to get famous !!!! :)

The full compilation video ...

2007-11-04T16:44:00.000+05:30

Hello !

This is a compilation video of most of the applications we've come up with , which by the way we presented in our semester juries. Our final concept was, to put in a lot of applications and present a concept for a future Multitouch based OS.
I'll try and explain all the apps very briefly here ...

1. The first one is our own custom presentation software

This application allows a presenter to arrange his/her slides on the multitouch table, and obviously ... scale them and rotate them. And then, there is the show button , which on touching presents the slide on a projector connected to the table. ( or for that matter any display device connected to the table ).

This is how it works

The inset in the video shows the slide being presented through a projector.

This means that, one can present his/her slides in a completely non-linear manner which is a requirement so often. And what better than referring to your slides by just touching them .

Whats more, this software is running over a network based on a http web server. So what this means is that, you can be sitting in your office with your own multitouch table ... presenting to your clients who are in some other location.
Pretty neat eh ? Therz more to come .

2. myCanvas
We've added a color mixer and a sketchbook feature to our good ol' paint application.

3. tangrams ...is the same

4. web applications

Now you can access your flickr and youtube accounts right from the table.
Scale, rotate and resize ... not only your photos, your favourite videos too.
Whats more, you can access google maps and yahoo roads also. Pan, zoom and rotate ... using your fingers.

5. The music mixer
The music mixer is just a basic demo of how collabrative music tools can work.

6. The camera
Its simple, click photos from your camera ... plug your camera into the table . All the pictures automatically load on the table. Now, obviously you can scale and rotate them . But wait, you can edit them too ... brightness, contrast and saturation ... all simultaneously !
Touch the upload button, and all these edited photos go right into your website!
Easy , isnt it ?

ok, enough explaination ...here's the video

The Director visits ...

2007-10-30T23:18:00.000+05:30

The Director of National Institute of Design, Dr.Darlie O Koshy, visited us today - to have a look at our project. He was impressed (to say the least :-) ) and took keen interest in going through the details of the table.

Dr Koshy, plays "myTangrams", our first game for multitouch

He spoke words of appreciation on the variety of applications that we have developed and the future possibilities of this project . Good day so far :)

Cheers
Adithya | Divesh

Updates!

2007-10-26T04:40:00.000+05:30

Hey..
Its been a while since we updated the blog, mainly cause our semester juries are approaching (less than a week to go) and we are really tied up with the last minute preperations!!!

Have been able to build some more cool apps (atleast we think they're cool) :) ... they include a batch photo editing and uploading tool (with all the multitouch coolness factor) that can load pics from your digital camera (DCIM format) and throw them around on the stage as soon as u plug it into the USB port!, then you edit them (basic editing like brightness, contrast, saturation) one or multiple images at a time and simply upload them to a http web address!!!

The second app is just a collection of different web services, reworked and with a new refreshing look and again all the multitouch coolness factor :)...a flickr photo application, youtube video app, and a google maps/yahoo road maps application that lets you do what google earth can, on a multitouch setup.

a screenshot of the web services app.. homepage :), this is how you'll access your favorite web-pages, in the future :D

currently we're working on a gesture engine that will simulate how we can create custom gestures and use them in our apps... next in the pipeline is a remote presentation tool ..

more details on that one and all the other app's video would be up soon.

cheers!!

divesh | adithya

Games on multitouch ... Yet another application

2007-10-16T22:06:00.000+05:30

Hello

After the keyboard, we were trying to figure out what would be an interesting domain to work on under multitouch.
Almost simultaneously, we came up with games and entertainment. Our guide, Mr. Kuntal De', suggested that we work on simple games that we used to play as kids - something like Tangrams aka Chinese puzzles.

So here it is, our first multitouch based game - Tangrams (literally "seven boards of skill"). There are 20 puzzles to be solved - with 7 pieces - each called a tan. The final shape should contain all pieces, without overlapping.

Chek out the video ...

So whats so multitouch about it ? You can use your fingers to drag the pieces, rotate them and fit them neatly into your puzzle. Also the parallelogram needs to be flipped at times so there is a defined gesture for that too.... the image below shows that and you can notice it in the video as well... (i flip it thrice i guess :D)
If you really find it hard to solve them ... just touch the Solve button.

Go back to your childhood :)

Cheers
Divesh | Adithya

A multitouch keyboard ...

2007-10-13T06:45:00.000+05:30

Hi !

Here is a video of our latest app... a multitouch keyboard. Now, access your keyboard with just an icon on your multitouch desktop. Touch it ... and a keyboard pops out.
Dont like the size ? Scale it ...
Dont like the orientation ? Rotate it ...

Otherwise, it just works like any normal keyboard. You still have to "touch" the shift key and hold onto it to type things like $ and :)

Cheers!

Divesh | Adithya

More on myCanvas ...

2007-10-08T17:19:00.000+05:30

Hi !

Here is some news ....
RalphDas, a from student Digital Media Design at the Utrecht School of the Arts, the Netherlands, has just added our video of myCanvas to his blog, and expressed his viewpoints ...

Check it out here

Cheers
Adithya | Divesh

myCanvas. -our next generation paint application

2007-10-07T21:49:00.000+05:30

Hello Everyone ...

Here is a video of our paint application - “myCanvas” (as we call it) …
Now you can paint using an actual paintbrush, dip it in water, select the colour you want ... and just colour up your canvas, like you always did as a kid. When the water goes dry ... dip it in water again and carry on.
Its as convetional as it gets. We have been painting on it for almost an hour now, and its good fun. Does leave you with a wet surface though… but that’s no problem.

There is more coming soon ...

Cheers
Divesh | Adithya

hiya people !!!! :)

2007-10-04T20:15:00.000+05:30

now i can claim that our table is ready to perform at its best. got rid of the choppy output by replacing the USB webcam with a IEEE 1394 sony handycam. now i am getting a feed at almost 30-35 fps.... so the apps run smooth like they should. New video post coming up soon.... can't keep my hands off my baby.... too excited to get on building some of our own apps.

cheers!!!!

Finally, the much awaited video... (atleast for us :D)

2007-10-01T23:32:00.000+05:30

This is a video of our multi touch setup in action (almost though). Its a bit choppy now but shud get better in some time. This application uses flickr API to download pics from my account and display them on the surface. Hand gestures are used to pan/zoom/rotate and move them around... pretty cool eh?

Cheers!

yipeeeee... its working!!!!

2007-09-29T16:27:00.001+05:30

finally after a week of cutting and chopping and grinding and soldering... we have finally managed to get the setup look like a finished product... and to add to it all.. it works!!!! posting some pics of how it looks now... its almost done... some varnish and it shud look great :)

cheers!!!

Introducing ....

2007-09-26T00:49:00.000+05:30

Hi !

We present, a touch-senstive desktop (what we are hoping to be India's very first). This is a user interface that allows people to interact with digital content the same way they have interacted with everyday items their entire life: with their hands and with gestures.

[ a snap of our touch sensitive table top interface ]

We are students of National Institute of Design(NID), India. This blog is meant to serve as documentation for a classroom project, we are currently doing.Seems very reminiscent of the recently released Microsoft Surface, but yes, we are trying to build new software based applications using this as our basic framework. Moreover, this is completely built in-house, in the workshops of NID.The aim of this project would be to create new and intuitive ways of interacting with digital content/media.

The underlying technology is usually referred to as Multitouch, and is based on FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection). FTIR describes the internal reflection of light, inside a certain material.

A lot of research has already been done in this field and people all over the world are building such products. Particularly, the NUI(Natural User Interfaces) group (www.nuigroup.com) has been doing pioneering work in the same. We thank them for the help we have already received.

After more than two weeks of work, we have been able to successfully implement a working multitouch system. We now begin the phase of exploring opportunities to build software applications which are based on multitouch. An important aspect of these applications would be justify the need of multitouch technology and highlight the improvements that are made possible by using multitouch.

We will shortly post on how we built it, what problems we faced and what we are planning further ...