Print
So now we’ve completed the hardware section. The process of building a multi-touch computer is far from over, though, we need to get the software installed and configured so that we can actually use the thing.
The central software that powered our rig is Touchlib, an open source library which takes the visual data received by the camera and parses it into touch events, which can be used by other programs to provide multi-touch control. Some programs implement this library directly, allowing for standalone multi-touch apps, while others, such as those written in ActionScript, require an extra software layer to allow the program to receive touch input. In this section, we’ll explain how we got both up and running.
But, there’s something else we had to take care of first. The PS3 Eye, as we mentioned earlier, is a fantastic fit for this project because of its high resolution, impressive framerate, and ease of modification. There’s just one problem: it’s meant to be used on a PlayStation 3, not a computer.
Fortunately, PC users are famously unconcerned with what things are “meant to” do, and enterprising multi-toucher Alex Popovich has written a driver that allows the PS3 eye to be used with a computer. To get it working, we followed these steps:
1. Download the PS3EyeSetup file here. The download link is a ways down the page, in red, just above the comments section.
2. Make sure that the modified PS3 Eye isn’t plugged into the computer, and then run the executable. Plug the PS3 Eye back in. If the Windows found new hardware wizard pops up, tell it to search for drivers manually, and point it to the folder we installed the drivers in (C:/Program Files/AlexP/Drivers).
3. Now, we’ll want to test to make sure that the drivers are working and that our computer can see the PS3 Eye. To do this, run the PS3Eye Test App included with the driver. Because we’ve already modified the camera, you probably won’t see anything on the screen unless we point the camera at a source of infrared light, such as a light bulb or a sunny window.
4. Now that we know the camera works, we need to check to see that the DirectShow filter works, which will allow other programs to access the PS3 Eye. There’s another program called AmCap installed with the drivers. Run it, and if the preview view shows what the camera is seeing, we’re golden. If it doesn’t, try unplugging the PS3 Eye and plugging it back in, as well as rebooting your computer. For reasons unknown, the first time we tried, we got stuck at this stage. For us, running the uninstall program, then installing the drivers again fixed the problem.
Now we'd gotten our PS3Eye up and running. Next, we had to get Touchlib set up to handle our touch detection. Touchlib can be found here, and doesn’t need to be installed. We simply extracted the files to C:/Multitouch.
We had to replace certain Touchlib files with ones specifically designed to work well with the PS3 Eye. We downloaded these files here, then extracted them to C:/Multitouch/touchlib, overwriting when we were prompted to do so.
Now, at long last, we’ll get to see how our surface actually works. We ran ConfigApp.exe from C:/Multitouch/Touchlib. This program launches a total of eight windows, six of which are the video stream from the PS3 Eye, at different stages of processing. It’s a little over whelming the first time, but it’s actually not that hard to use these to get Touchlib properly configured to do touch recognition on our setup.
The most important window is the one in the bottom right, with the slider marked “Rectify” is the one that’s most significant. This window displays the “blobs” that will get passed as touch events. When the touch surface is working properly, this window will be entirely black until we touch the screen, at which point a white blob will appear, hopefully without flickering. Starting with the window in the bottom left, and moving right, we adjusted all the sliders so that we got the clearest blobs when you touch the screen. Generally, we accomplished this by playing with each slider until we started to get background noise on the Rectify window, then scaled it back slightly. Once you’re happy with the sensitivity of your screen, it’s time to calibrate.
Calibration is necessary to sync up the projected image and the touch surface. To calibrate, we first pressed the Enter key. This enables full screen mode, and displays a grid of green crosses. To begin calibration, we pressed the ‘c’ key. One of the crosses on the display turns red. By pressing on the dot, Touchlib is able to map that point in projector space to a point in camera space. The next cross will turn red, and this continues until all crosses have been pressed. We learned the hard way that when you’re done calibrating Touchlib, you must press the escape key. If you close the program any other way, it won’t update the config file with your changes.
Now our surface had been be properly configured (at least until we moved the camera or projector, or the lighting conditions changed significantly). To test it out, we ran the smoke.exe app in the Touchlib folder. With everything calibrated properly, colored “smoke” particle effects were displayed on our surface everywhere we touched.
However, we didn’t let ourselves celebrate for too long, because many apps written for the multi-touch surface are coded in the ActionScript language used by Adobe Flash. These programs are not set up to natively use multi-touch data, so we had to use a software layer to allow the flash-based apps to work properly. This is a three step process:
1. Change Flash’s global security settings to allow the flash apps access to the touch data. Go to this page and click the “Edit locations…” dropdown box, then select “Add Location,” then “Browse for folders.” Browse to the folder containing the flash programs you want to run, which by default is C:/Multitouch/Clients. This only has to be done once.
2. Run OSC.exe from the touchlib folder. This is an implementation of a protocol called OpenSound Control, which was originally designed to allow musical instruments to interface with computers, but can also be used to (among other things) allow programs to access multi-touch input data. This needs to be run any time you want to use a multi-touch flash app.
3. Run FlashOSCv2.jar (requires the Java runtime environment) from C:/Multitouch/Clients/flosc. And press the “start” button on the window that pops up. This program simply allows flash programs to access OSC data. This also has to be run every time you run multi-touch flash apps.
With that done, we were finally ready to try out the whole array of apps that have been written for DIY multi-touch tables. There aren’t a ton of apps available right, but we were able to find enough to have a good time with the table. Some apps come with Touchlib, in the C:/Multitouch/Clients folder, and we also recommend the AudioTouch apps, available at Seth Sandler's blog and the Multitouch Media App, by Laurence Muller.
Comments are closed on this article
mpegteknesi
April 09, 2012 at 6:58am
[url=http://www.konteynerportal.com/]konteyner[/url] a [url=http://www.wckabini.com/]wc kabin[/url] a
[url=http://www.celikev.org/]celik ev[/url] a [url=http://www.prefabrikvilla.com/]prefabrikvilla[/url]
emma5077
April 05, 2012 at 1:59pm
There are certainly a couple more details to take into consideration, but thank yiouj for sharing this information.
is bronchitis contagious
spy guy
March 30, 2012 at 11:16am
I'm trying to realize multitouch screen with using Acrylic glass covered with projection material (tracing paper) and IR LED strip that is sticking around the glass. I'm experiencing the problem http://www.spyphoneguy.com
http://www.androidspy.com
http://www.spyphoneguy.com
http://wwww.androidspy.com
http://www.iphonespyphone.com
http://www.cellspyreviews.com
jimmy83
March 15, 2012 at 2:23am
I was surprised by the spending of influence by those listed? In actuality I would have expected it because all are interested in getting what they wanted never mind the consequences.
Very useful for me I will bookmark this for my future needed. thanks for a great source.
http://www.mainlandskateandsurf.com/c-59-SKATE-SHOP.aspx
jimmy83
March 08, 2012 at 2:08am
thanks a lot for your valuable sharing,right from the beginning till end it was really very informative.I can witness the experience and steps you have taken to accomplish this wonderful work.
http://www.irishindeed.com/browse.cfm/irish-rings/2,624.html
jimmy83
February 27, 2012 at 3:29am
I am quite sure they will learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else!....There is also a lot of visual symbolism that is sometimes subtle, sometimes not so subtle..
http://shop.frostshoes.com/browse.cfm/ugg-bailey-button-triplet-atlantic-blue/4,3633.html
mahandra
February 25, 2012 at 4:58pm
Thank you for the read. Honestly you covered the topic and broadly examined all areas. If i was to write this i would have done a few things differently myself but you have definitely inspired me to get into the world of blogging.
posicionamiento en google
sien00
February 23, 2012 at 6:43am
I find it puzzling that the Chamber of Commerce would so blatantly ally themselves with abusive monopolies against their purported small business supporters.
Kinder spelletjes
jimmy83
February 20, 2012 at 4:45am
thanks a lot for your valuable sharing,right from the beginning till end it was really very informative.I can witness the experience and steps you have taken to accomplish this wonderful work.
http://www.irishindeed.com/browse.cfm/irish-rings/2,624.html
jimmy83
February 15, 2012 at 12:14am
I know so a great deal a lot more about this than I did previous to. Your blog seriously brought some items to light which i never would have believed about ahead of reading through it
pos system | pos systems
jimmy83
February 13, 2012 at 12:12am
They may participate directly in collaborative artifact production and promotion (such as can be found within the machinima community, for example). Just as importantly, a person can devote much of their energies to regularly visiting a site central
silver snowflake earrings | snowflake bracelet
Shawn Teo
February 10, 2012 at 1:38am
Thanks for such an interesting article here. I was searching for something like that for quite a long time and at last I have found it here.I thank you for taking your time sharing your thoughts and ideas to a lot of readers out there.Good job what you have!this article having a wonderful piece of information Admiring the time and effort you put into your blog and detailed information you offer!Please keep sharing and just please keep us update...
http://www.newlaunchsingapore.com
antonio1
February 08, 2012 at 3:16pm
Confronta i prezzi degli hotel. Cerca e risparmia confrontando hotel e siti di prenotazione con una sola ricerca e trova la migliore offerta di internet
http://www.hotelly.it
club009 spy software
February 06, 2012 at 9:48am
Really Excellent work i liked reading your post. i am very much impressed by your work and will visit again soon.step wise procedure really helped me.http://www.club009.net
asurhang
January 18, 2012 at 5:52am
Hi Alex,
Thanks for all the tutorials and explanations provided. We really appreciate. We are working on developing MT with Sony PS3 camera fallowing your instructions. We managed to Install touch Lıb and test PS3 camera with advised software.
However, I can not get a sign whether LED's get 12v and working and test whether they Camera sees IR lights? We will appreciate if you can kindly advise us.
Thank you very much in advance.
Best regards,
alpy
jessica81
January 16, 2012 at 4:38pm
We have builts systems for storage auctions and people who watch pawn stars on their laptops. Thanks for the info.
MikeHenry
January 09, 2012 at 12:16pm
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often. Cell phone repair mississauga | iphone repair mississauga | Cell phone unlocking mississauga | mississauga iphone repair
ScotWetherington
January 07, 2012 at 12:18am
You helped me greatly in my work by writing this article.
Janny
January 02, 2012 at 5:38am
Hello there I am so thrilled I found your webpage, I really found you by error, while I was researching on Digg for something else, Anyways I am here now and would just like to say kudos for a incredible post and a all round entertaining blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read it all at the minute but I have book-marked it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read a lot more, Please do keep up the awesome job.
abhebert
December 30, 2011 at 6:54pm
It's incredible how quickly technology like multi-touch surface computing is becoming accessible to the population. It allows designers a new scope to create interfaces to interact with users. It enables people to find oil change coupons with just the touch of a screen.
laurasharon
December 23, 2011 at 10:59am
As much as three quarters of hospital staff are usually burdened with some sort of billing-related work in a traditional billing system. Opting for electronic medical billing solutions (ones that come with free EMR plans) that fit easily into the healthcare business' workflow are key to freeing up staff resources. Physicians Billing Services Medical Billing Services
mrwills
December 22, 2011 at 9:54am
Technolgy that is wonderful The Theory You Mention Above I Agree with All Point Good to See Still There Are Some Programmer who are working on this project Microsoft offering a good amount definatly
gabegame
December 19, 2011 at 10:03am
Thanks for doing this detailed guide. The only thing I'd love to see is a big parts list and prices. Also, I wonder if there is a market for custom touch screen tables like this? I suppose a few people would buy one, probably not anyone looking for a budget gaming pc though.
haydenb3
December 12, 2011 at 6:04am
I thought this peice was great! Really big help! I'm trying something similar at home; except I am installing a multitouch panel onto a monitor then installing it into a coffee table. Should be great! Thanks a lot!
saima
December 08, 2011 at 11:45pm
Excellent publish from specialist also it will probably be a fantastic know how to me and thanks very much for posting this useful data with us all. cna classes
Lucky127
December 07, 2011 at 9:16pm
This is a great inspiring article.I am pretty much pleased with your good work.You put really very helpful information. Keep it up. Keep blogging. Looking to reading your next post.fotocamera Zoekmachine optimalisatie chalet
laurasharon
November 21, 2011 at 11:25am
As much as three quarters of hospital staff are usually burdened with some sort of billing-related work in a traditional billing system. Opting for electronic medical billing solutions (ones that come with free EMR plans) that fit easily into the healthcare business' workflow are key to freeing up staff resources. Physicians Billing Services|Medical Billing Services
mileycyrusjohn
October 30, 2011 at 11:52pm
There is, it turns out, a whole community of very smart folks out there on the internet perfecting the art of building DIY multi-touch surfaces. The process isn’t exactly simple, Essay Help but the results we saw were stunning: multitouch surfaces with responsiveness rivaling Microsoft’s $12,000 offering, built in a garage on a shoestring budget. “Future UI article be damned,” we thought, “we’ve gotta build one of these for ourselves.”
saree manohan
November 30, 2011 at 8:46pm
I admire the way you express yourself through writing. Your post is Such a refreshing one to read. This is an interesting and informative Such article to share with others ..
knuxie112
October 27, 2011 at 10:15am
it really interest me to read a lot in your post. .thanks for sharing it to us . .really much appreciated. find cell phone location . . .great post.
florajohnson
October 28, 2011 at 2:53am
Nice work! Your post is an excellent example of why I keep coming back to read your excellent quality content that is forever updated.
robrob
October 03, 2011 at 3:09pm
This looks really good, does work in the way as the iphone touch screens or more like the pressure sensitive type? how to invest
seregakiev
September 29, 2011 at 3:55am
Vital information for students like me. I'm gonna use it for my IT Class. Thanks! люстры
EShemluck
September 27, 2011 at 8:29am
Wow, very cool... would you mind writing a follow up post to this? Curious to see if you've experimented any further, or gained any other insights since building this. ITIL Training
lighting
September 21, 2011 at 7:11am
I'm trying to realize multitouch screen with using Acrylic glass covered with projection material (tracing paper) and IR LED strip that is sticking around the glass. I'm experiencing the problem - IR camera doesn't see position of my fingers placed on the projection material, however it sees my fingers w/o this tracing paper (on bare acrylic glass). My conclusion is that tracing paper blocks IR. For now I don't use any compliant surface. Do you think that adding compliant surface would help ?
elissaclamp
September 13, 2011 at 11:49pm
Very cool hardware project. Most OS platforms have support for multi-touch now so it's getting easier. Since, I assume your using Windows XP and the Touchlib library. X.org has added MPX support so it should be supported on most Linux distributions in the future. I've learned a lot from this post. Will be coming back for updates. Thanks for sharing..
peterkondom
September 13, 2011 at 2:53pm
that's wicked, man. how much time did it take you to assemble it?
my research is on the <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.condom-sizes.org/best-condoms/best-condoms">best condoms</a>
tjjohnson45
September 12, 2011 at 5:46pm
I would like to no who have tried this and what is some of your advise that you could share on building it.
eissa06
September 02, 2011 at 2:22am
Thank you Alex Castle for imparting your knowledge to us regarding how to do our own multitouch gadgets. This is very useful to us.
vivek paliwal
August 23, 2011 at 3:08am
nice article !..... you should know that Apple fans are desperately waiting for the iphone 5 release
vivek paliwal
August 23, 2011 at 2:56am
Thanks for blogging..... Apple fans are desperately waiting for the iphone 5 release so they can get their hands on the device as soon as possible and it looks like the things may be looking up for all those iphone lovers. The latest reports revealed by some tech analysts shows that Apple’s carrier partner, AT&T has confirmed that the next generation is now set for October launch.... iphone 5
vitala
August 15, 2011 at 3:15am
I think this article is great. It shows you how Multitouch Surface Computers work in detail. I think that Multitouch Surface Computers will have a great impact on our Future. In a few years you won’t have to use a keyboard or a mouse to operate your computer. You can simply touch the screen and drag windows over your screen or start software by simply touching its shortcut-icon. It’s a big step in the development of our computers. koi und teich
capatana
November 21, 2011 at 4:03am
cyberknife I find it puzzling that the Chamber of Commerce would so blatantly ally themselves with abusive monopolies against their purported small business supporters.
Deeve
August 11, 2011 at 7:57pm
I wish I could something like that together shoe polish. It would be pretty sweet to be able to slide things around like that.
