\n\tResearchers from Microsoft and Carnegie Mellon University have shown off technology that can turn any surface into a touchscreen.
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\n\tThe OmniTouch is a wearable device that projects a graphical user interface, such as a computer desktop or a virtual keypad, onto any surface, from a table to a hand. Users can interact with these virtual interfaces using their fingers, which are tracked by sensors built into OmniTouch, in the same way they would use a touchscreen.
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\n\tThe prototype technology is on display at UIST 2012, the Association for Computing Machinery’s 24th Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, that is being held in Santa Barbara, California.
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\n\tNick Heath from silicon.com provides the captions.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tOmniTouch is designed to be wearable. The prototype is a shoulder-mounted device made up of a laser-based pico projector and a depth-sensing camera, similar to that found in the Microsoft Kinect.
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\n\tThe OmniTouch uses the depth-sensing camera to build a graphical model of the world which allows it to calculate how far away objects are. The system’s software can recognise fingers, and a depth map allows it to determine whether a finger is touching a surface. When a finger touches a surface onto which an interface is projected, users can interact with the screen, clicking buttons or dragging icons, in the same way they would with any other touchscreen.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tThe ability of the system to track finger movements allows it to support a wide range of gestures, such as drawing with fingers, as seen here.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tThe system can be set up to allow users to create touchscreen interfaces on any surface. For example, the system could be configured to recognise a finger being dragged diagonally, as seen here, as a gesture telling it to create a new interface on that surface. The size of the interface would correspond to the distance the finger is dragged.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tBecause the system can trace the movement of fingers on any surface, it can be set up to recognise gestures such as pinch-zooming on a map.
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\n\tMicrosoft Research Redmond researcher Hrvoje Benko said in a statement: “We wanted the ability to use any surface.
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\n\t”Let the user define the area where they want the interface to be, and have the system do its best to track it frame to frame. This creates a highly flexible, on-demand user interface.”
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tAnother potential use for OmniTouch is tracking the movement of fingers to highlight text in a printed document.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tIn this picture, the user is selecting apps from a menu on his hand which are then run on the interface projected onto the table.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tResearchers say the wearable shoulder-mounted prototype could be reduced to a matchbox-sized device that could be worn on a watch or a pendant.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
\n\tA shot showing how the system recognises and traces fingers.
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\n\tPhoto: Microsoft Research/CMU
