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This blog is dead because I've open a new blog. 

You can check it there.

Have fun !

Gimme the defibrillator...

This is not the first post claiming that I'm still on and once again I got nothing new. I've had something more important to do, I think everybody knows what it's like to try to find moments to move on a side project.

Anyway I hope this summer will allow me to really work on multitouch (try to improve what I called circle detection, more details here).

Quick Update

Rear illumination seems to be ok but there are 2 issues: the first on is that I can't obtain a white color because it's possible to see through the screen. I think using a completely white box is the only way but i'm still waiting for an advice on it.
The second issue is that the blobs are not good enough to track them (no good contrast). I think the only way is to use some kind of background removal (I mean compare the image with a prerecorded background).

That's all !

Edit: I've forgotten to show you how it's like : here is a video.

Still Alive

I'm still alive, don't worry ;-) I'm just busy so my project isn't making progress.

Just an idea to share, maybe it's possible to track the light reflection (infrared light) on a hand nail like this:



By placing a few light sources, it's possible to get white dots/lines. The problem is that it's pretty hard to inculde the thumb's nail in the process.

I'm bulding a kind of a line to have a lot of sources and see if it works correctly. Right know I don't know how to generate a click event, the natural way is to use stereoscopy but maybe by hiding the top of the clicking finger (~ 0,5s)  and go back to the original position (like a click on a mouse but in order to hide the nail).

I'm pretty disapointed because its a strange technic but I really don't want to disassemble a screen so I'm looking for a solution using front detection.

Happy new year

Yeah that's right, I'm late but I wish everyone a very happy new year ! (2008 will be the year of multitouch technologies guys ;-) ).

I didn't work these holidays, but I've made a picture of the principle of my project :

(full size here)

I thought that it was easy to make a touchscreen using 2 webcams but is seems to be hard to compute. So I'll use 1 webcam but the box will be deeper (+5 cm). This is a big box but the computer will be inside (considering the 1 webcam system, 40*29*27 cm). Normally, it will be smaller in the end (let's hope so...).

Concerning the "flat illumination", it's the system used by nima on the NUI group's forum. I have tested 2 rails of leds and it works pretty well. Of course it is possible to hide an area with your hands or fingers but I didn't succeed in doing this. The problem is the blobs are pretty big, due to some filters which are necessary to have an even ligthing.
The first test of the frame should be next week.

Merry Xmas

If there is someone reading this blog, merry chrismas ;-)

I made one video (here). I'm waiting for a screen in order to build a frame with IR leds.
That's all (hey, it's chrismas time ^^).

Once again, merry chrismas and happy holidays !

Still on the road...

I have received my acrylic sheet so I'm running some tests about the silicone rubber...

A french guy on the NUI forum try to use a silicone caulk in order to have a cheap silicone rubber. I'm on it and I'm experiencing some troubles because toluene is a necessary component and I don't have it. I'll try to get some asap.

I also tried to use a really thin sheet of plastic and put some water between it and the acrylic sheet. The result is pretty good, I see no big difference between this setup and the silicone caulk, but I didn't dilute the caulk with toluene, maybe that's the reason why there is no difference. Anyway, there is a video here.

The blobs aren't good because the sides of my acrylic sheet are almost opaque.

Btw, I must finish another project this week so I won't post a message before next week.