[Lab] Touch sensitive/reactive windows

[bentfork at gmail.com]

Interesting project.  So many possibilities.

Have you considered Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR)? It's
been used with rear projection multi touch displays.  You may have
enough space to mount the IR cameras on the inside for sensing.


http://www.touchfactors.com/
and
http://cs.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirsense/


The pros are you'd not need to wire up each window.
The cons are, you want the display to be back lit.  But if y ou use IR
illumination, then switch to colour illumination this may not be a
problem.


On Mon, Mar 14, 2011 at 12:00 PM,  <lab-request at artengine.ca> wrote:

>
> Hi gang,
>
> I'm working on a an interactive light piece which is basically a large
> tower covered in windows:
> http://www.technoetc.net/imgs/urbana_2011_gameplay_2.png
>
> Each window will be translucent acrylic, and illuminated from behind.
> To provide interaction, I'd like each window to be touch sensitive.
> I'd like to use a capacitive sensing approach, but not sure if this
> will work until I do some experiments; I fear over such a large area
> capacitive sensing will be very noisy.
>
> In the meantime, I'd love to hear any suggestions anyone might have as
> to how to detect users touching the windows.  I'd like to avoid having
> to use little buttons beside each window or turning each window into a
> mechanical switch -- since there are 100+ windows, I'm looking for a
> solution that scales reasonably well.
>
> Light or IR sensors might be an option, but I imagine will require a
> great deal of calibration.  Does anyone have any experience sensing IR
> reflections through translucent or tinted acrylic?
>
> The piece is still in the design stage, so I'd love to hear your
> suggestions/comments.
>
> Thanks in advance for your consideration and suggestions,
> Andrew
>
>