Microsoft Developer Shows You How to Make a DIY Surface
If you followed David Murphy's path to building a budget PC with a cardboard chassis, then why not compliment it with your own homebrewed Surface, also with a cardboard exterior?
Microsoft technology evangelist Paul Foster posted a YouTube video showing how you can build a functioning multi-touch surface using budget parts. Items you'll need are paper, scissors, picture frame with glass, tape, cardboard box, a webcam, and multi-touch software such as Touchlib.
From start to finish, it takes Foster less than four minutes to complete the project and run a short demonstration. Of course, that's with a cardboard box - skilled modders will want to invest a bit more time coming up with custom enclosure.
Watch the video here and tell us what you think.
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winmaster
January 31, 2009 at 5:35pm
You can also create a multi touch surface by connecting Wii Remotes to your computer via Bluetooth.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s5EvhHy7eQ
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The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
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vistageek
January 29, 2009 at 7:43pm
i made a pretty sweet multitouch media center with touchlib and a webcam. I have a coffee table i frount of the couch with the multitouch tabel in it and then that displey is mirrored onto the projector. it is pretty awsome and impressive considering I set the whole thing up for under $100.
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neo1piv14
January 29, 2009 at 1:42pm
I saw this video not too long ago, and I was really impressed. There's a lot of poeple out there doing some pretty cool stuff with it, though I notice that all of the multitouch features that they show are only in demo applications. It just doesn't seem like Windows by default understands multitouch, so the functionality of this is a bit reduced. However, it would be pretty cool to see MS release a patch that would allow for multi touch, or even better, release an open source app that mimics the Surface interface (minus some of the selling point features of course).
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TheMurph
January 29, 2009 at 12:31pm
Cardboard is obviously the future of technological construction. :D
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winmaster
January 31, 2009 at 5:25pm
Your cardboard rig was awful. It had no power switch and you didn't save any money because you had to buy a separate PSU. I thought it was a good idea until I read the article.
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The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.
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CTskifreak
January 29, 2009 at 12:32pm
TheMurph returns once again.
Hmm...I got to watch this video once I'm out of class.















