February 24th, 2011 by Jim Spadaccini
For the latest installment see: Building a High-Resolution Multitouch Wall (Part 3), and Building a High-Resolution Multitouch Wall (Part 4).
Back in November, I first blogged about building a 7-foot, round, high-resolution multitouch wall. At that point in the process we had just received the large ring and built the computer system. Now, we have installed the glass and have built out the rigging for the cameras and projectors.
The glass is haptic: it has a texture, doesn’t show fingerprints, and still displays the image beautifully. We purchased the glass from a company called Sevasa. They make an acid-etched architectural glass that has a great feel to it. The tempered glass is 10mm thick.
Due to the size of the glass, we are not adhering the project material directly on to the glass, but rather we have a piece of acrylic with projection material that will go directly behind the glass. We have already done projection test and the combination works great. (I will post more about that once we put the acrylic in place.)
Behind the 7-foot ring, we have built a rigging frame out of Bosch aluminum. The rigging holds the four IR (infrared) cameras in place. It will also hold the projectors in place.
We will be using an IR method called Laser Light Plane (LLP) illumination. The system will have four cameras that will gather the tracking information. The exhibit will be installed in early summer, it is being built for a major North American aquarium. We will post another update on this project in the next week or two.
To see the previous step in the process check out: Building a High-Resolution Multitouch Wall Part 1.
February 15th, 2011 by Jim Spadaccini
Our module for Kinect provides a simple solution for authoring gesture-based applications in Flash. Lately, we’ve been using it in conjunction with our other free Open Exhibits software modules. While the Kinect device itself doesn’t have the necessary precision for use with every module, we have successfully paired it with our gigapixel image viewer, our new VR Panoramic image viewer, and with our Google Maps module.
Our free Kinect module works with Community Core Vision (CCV) software, an open source software package for computer vision. We’ve used this software in the past with various multitouch tables and other installations. Our Kinect module is a “directshow” source filter, a virtualized webcam device that reads data from the drivers released by OpenKinect.
Here’s a video showing the Kinect module working with other Open Exhibits software.
The Kinect module and the others are all free and open on the Open Exhibits website. The Open Exhibits core software is free for students, educators, nonprofits, and museums. (Commercial users can download a free GestureWorks trial.) Add a $150 Kinect 3D Motion Controller to our software and you have a very cheap and flexible authoring solution.
There are photographs of the Kinect and Open Exhibits modules on the OE Flickr site.
This article is cross-posted on the Open Exhibits Website.In the video, the gigapixel image of El Capitán that appeared in the example was provided by xRez Studio. The cubic VR image of Chichen Itza was taken by Ideum back in 2005 and is part of the Traditions of the Sun project.
February 10th, 2011 by Jim Spadaccini
GestureWorks multitouch software is now available for purchase bundled with Touch Revolution’s TRū™ multitouch desktop monitors. These bundles are available in the new Touch Revolution online store. You can choose between the 15, 19, and 22 inch models.
The TRū™ Touch monitors have a very cool bezel-free design and are extremely durable. The 22″ model has HD resolution. You can learn more about the monitors and the bundle in the Touch Revolution online store.
You can see a video of the 22″ TRū™ Touch Monitor in action with a multitouch version of asteroids that we developed with Touch Revolution for CES that we posted last month.
February 9th, 2011 by Chad Person
We’ve recently made some significant changes to GestureWorks to improve Flex authoring. Today, we are releasing GestureWorks 2.1 for Flex, a dedicated version of GestureWorks for Flashbuilder, AIR, Eclipse, and PowerFlasher FDT.
This new build offers enhanced support for custom development environments and a restructured event system, making it more compatible with existing Flex tools. GestureWorks 2.1 for Flex broadens your development and publishing options, too. Using the new SDK, developers can publish to SWF, AIR or projector EXE. With GestureWorks or MXML or add Air 2.5 to publish AIR applications.
Current users will be able to upgrade to the new Flex build for free using their existing license key. New users can download a free trial of the GestureWorks for Flex here.
