It works!...again

Right, so I've fixed the first programming problem. First of all I should say that the screen is working properly now and I can configure it properly as well. I am still missing a projector, which isn't great and I am also missing a laptop for portability, but that can wait. One less thing to worry about though.

The hardware interfaces with the infra camera, which is interpreted by the software on the computer. I had already been notified of an API framework (Call it what you will) called openFrameworks by developers at Autodesk and so I went to check it out. To cut a long story short I chose this as my end solution. I used tbeta and mtmini software to configure the hardware and test the principles of infra red hardware, before progressing.

Yesterday I found out that I couldn't just interface directly with openFrameworks (Which is built in C++) without having something else handle the multi touch interaction, which was being picked up by the infra red camera. Thankfully the community is fantastic and someone had already had this problem.

Tbeta software handles multi touch movements on screen and configures them and it has a facility to send these movements out through a localhost service (This basically picks up the movement information sent out by tbeta and waits for another application to ask for it) using a specific port. So this was the fix to my problem, because it would do all the hard work for me...famous last words! haha

Well it wasn't so bad in the end. After a full day of tweaking and trying to figure out why the libraries weren't linking properly in Code:Blocks (The C++ shell I am using), I finally got it to work. But I had to update the framework, the addons that I needed to get it to work and my project links.

So now I have a lovely blank window, but hope to have paint or something much more interesting to show for it, very soon!

Optimised and Working!

The electrical tape worked!

After a lot of numerous changes today, I've managed to optimise all the blobs so they work effectively. I can drag a finger over the surface and get blobs picked up effectively. I can resize images and rotate the 2d global desk using my fingers as well. So all the basic functionality I need is working (Yipee!)

I do have some videos but they're very large so I'm attempting to re-encode them via After Effects, if it works I will post the youtube videos.

I intend to try and build a contraption to keep the surface still, sometime soon, it's rather heavy at 2-3 kg's, so it does need something fairly robust. I also need to get a projector to make interaction with blobs complete and fully intuitive.

More updates will follow I bet...

Blob tests...

The set up works, but its configuration is a little unstable. But there are a few fixable reasons for this. I tested the blobs first of all (Blobs are impressions made onto the acrylic surface (The touch surface) which disrupt the infra red field.) So the first test was successful, I managed to create blobs just by using my fingers on the surface, however I had to use the opposite to the side I expected, to achieve this...which still has me a little confused.







That was last night, today I've been trying to re-configure the hardware. I set everything up on a more stable surface, though I have nothing built to hold the screen in place...which is going to become annoying. I've found out today that the LED strip at the edge is interfering with the software picking up the blobs effectively, without that I can't really go forward.

So now I am going to try taping off the LED bleed with electrical tape.

Photos!

I'll be uploading photos to a new flickr page here

Beats reading about it all!