Stuff..

Been a long time since I posted anything so I'll summarize a bit.

I'm still horribly addicted to TF2 - I'm hoping that I will start to get sick of it soon, but so far it hasn't happened yet. The last time I was this into an online game was Quake2 and that was nearly 10 years ago. Stay away from it!

We had our open house at my workplace - my multitouch table was on display and it was a pretty big hit. I've since added a second 144 LED IR illuminator to the table to help get a more even IR distribution. The table works and is very sensitive even in daylight (there's a window next to the table). Plus I can leave it on all day without having to recalibrate or otherwise mess with it. I'll try to post some pics..

I picked up a usb-bluetooth PC adaptor yesterday. I'll probably try messing with some Wii-mote stuff at some point. A Wiimote -> OSC application should be pretty easy to make.

I also managed to get 1 or 2 things done on Genome though I am still trying to get back into the swing of it. It's a large project with a long list of todo's which can make getting started discouraging. Before, I was able to meet my goal of doing one thing on it every morning (working for like 1/2 an hour).

Difused Illumination test

I tried out the diffused illumination method yesterday. Results were pretty encouraging - I got reliable touches without having to press hard like I did with the FTIR. Also you can use any part of your finger or hand to trigger it (or other objects such as a pointer or paintbrush..). I think this is the approach I will go with for the next table I build.

Roy Block [ ]

I came across this interesting video on YouTube. It's using Reactivision to detect the position of some bricks that the user holds to help guide an onscreen character to a goal. It's kind of like video gaming in reverse. It'd be interesting to see something with different types of tangibles (they could be different power-ups or objects such as trampolines, etc). Interesting concept.

Touchlib

Just a note to anyone trying out the binaries: You'll also need to have the .NET framework installed apparently (I'm guessing visual studio 2005 added this dependency.. anyone know how to remove it?). You'll also need DirectX installed if you expect to get any video capturing using the DSVideoLib option (which is the default). I'll update the touchlib page with this info soon. I also have some slightly newer binaries to post with some fixes and additions.

As you know, I am working on a complete package for developing apps using Touchlib, FLOSC, and Flash 9. I'm currently working on the low level stuff like generating events for multitouch things. Debugging is proving to be a pain in the ass since I moved my camera and table to a seperate machine so I have to walk to another room when I want to test something. This is combined with the fact that Flash 9 doesn't have breakpoints and code stepping working (yet). So, I decided I've had enough and I'm gonna write some code to record the OSC packets to an XML file that I can replay again and again while I'm debugging. I'm also coding some built in stuff for visualizing finger presses and displaying debug info. This way I won't have to get up and I'll at least be able to use Flash's trace window.

Once I get this stuff working, my first app is gonna be the Jeff Han style photo app since it should be fairly easy to do in flash and everyone seems to want it. Plus it'll allow me to write code for for the 'scale, rotate, translate' gesture which will no doubt become a multitouch standard.

Touchscreen work

I just received a new PC I ordered. I'm planning on dedicating it to my multitouch table so that I can have a more permanent setup. So, right now I'm doing the fun task of getting all the windows updates installed. I'm also planning on messing a bit with Ubuntu later this week.

Lately I've been doing some work on creating some Actionscript 3 classes for Flash 9 that will interface with FLOsc. The nice thing about what I'm doing is that my TUIO events will extend the regular mouse events, so regular components (such as buttons, scrollbars, etc) may still work in a multitouch setting.

Overall I'm really liking most of the changes for Actionscript 3, especially the XML ones which make dealing with XML a much more painless process. Also, the extra speed and lower level control over movieclips and bitmaps is nice. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of graphical effects I'll be able to accomplish.

Once I get these classes done I'll be working on some small multitouch apps (preferably games or other fun things) in Flash 9. I want to make a game that a couple people can work together on in a cooperative way. I think sandbox style games may work well.

If anyone has any ideas they'd care to share, feel free to post them in the comments.

Preliminary OSC support added to touchlib

I checked in the first version of a small demo app built on touchlib that outputs presses using the TUIO and OSC protocols. Pictured on the left is one of the reference apps which responds to the TUIO protocol taking messages from my new OSC app. This allows you to distribute the processing of touch messages and applications across two machines (OSC operates over regular internet cables). It can also run on one machine. This will also let you write multitouch applications in things like Flash (using FLOSC or Flash 9) and Processing - anything that responds to OSC. This should lower the bar for those looking to write some apps. Note: these changes now require you to have the OSCPack files downloaded in order to compile the OSC example app. Also set the OSCPACK_HOME environment variable to the root dir where you have OSCPack installed.

You can download the pre-compiled executable files and associated DLL's here. If you have a working hardware setup (including projector), you'll need to run the configapp.exe to calibrate your stuff first. Those without a full FTIR hardware setup may not get much use out of this. Note: there may be some bugs with the OSC.exe app. I will take a look at fixing these soon.

Get the latest updates from Google Code.

Today's Work

I got a bunch of stuff done on Genome's tracker module. You now scroll patterns larger than the screen, and you can box select with the mouse. I'm planning on putting my own spin on the tracker in an attempt to bring it into the 21st century. For one, I'm making it horizontal instead of vertical (mirroring pretty much every other music program out there). Mouse interaction will be much better than in the past (read: Buzz). You will still be able to do everything with the keyboard, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to do everything with the mouse too. Gone is the fact that deleting a cell moves all the cells beneath it up. I always felt that this was annoying behavior. Sometimes it does come in handy for moving blocks of notes around, however a lot of the time you just want to delete something without messing up your timing for everything else. Instead, I will leverage box selection and allow users to move around blocks of notes with the keyboard or mouse, or I will add another keyboard short cut (like ctrl-delete) to do the old behavior.

On the touchlib front, on suggestion from some other #ftir'ers I checked out Oscpack and FLOSC. I was able to get both up and running fairly easily so I think I may take a shot at adding OSC support to Touchlib. I will use the TUIO protocol which is already used by the reactivision software. A handful of programs already support this protocol - Audiomulch for one - so it could expand the available applications that can work with touchlib. Also, it will alow for development in Flash (with FLOSC) which is exciting to me as a Flash Developer. This could be a good option for people to start making apps without having to mess with C++.

Multitouch News

The Nuigroup website is now in full swing, with all major parts operational. Be sure to check out some of the latest news postings and drop by the forum. I'll be making all my multitouch related news postings on there from now on.

Multitouch Website

Chris Moore is in the process of setting up a website devoted to the Multitouch community. It will feature news, forums and a wiki. Right now, the forum is up and running, and already has a bunch of members. Feel free to join and post your questions and discoveries about multitouch screens. Also be sure to check out the Showcase area which has some video's you might not have seen.

Eventually I hope this site will become the hub for DIY multitouch news (in addition to other cool related stuff). I will transition my multitouch posts to that site and keep this blog focused on my own projects.

DIY Multitouch Video

One of our fellow FTIR seekers has posted a video of his project. Here he is evaluating a possible compliant surface made using silicone sealant

Success!

Woo! Today was a great day for my touchscreen. I got it all put together, complete with some aluminum pieces to protect the LED's. I also got the calibration software working (though it still needs some fixes). Check out my flickr set for pics. There is still a lot of work to do, but for the first time I have the screen projecting and detecting in synch.