Quick sidenote on another project I’m working on. Another collaboration with multitouch-hard- and software wizzard Johannes Luderschmidt, which is an interactive case-scenario tool for the police of the state of Hessen in Germany called Vispol. It was originally concepted and developed as a masterstudy by Johannes but is now a full-grown software for instant use on multitouch able surfaces. I created the design concept for this has-to-be-very-functional software and developed all the designs. And yes, it’s all circles again.  Believe me, it was the best suitable form for this use. 

What you can see now is a movie about Vispol 1.0, but we’re already working on a design update, which will feature a much better contrast and signal colours. You can see all details about it on our collaborative website www.visactible.com.

-> all details: www.visactible.com

Finally another cut movie with the aim to show the functionality of the Digital Volvelles 2.0 application a little bit better. Hopefully there will be soon an online mouse-version to try it out. 

Microsoft’s Future Vision Series

http://invidesk.react-in.com/

Old news but still impressive: 

Where the hell is Apple? Sleeping?

Finally I’m able to put some filmmaterial online. We’ve filmed the way you interact with the Volvelles on the touchscreen-table in a proper way too, but still have to cut and finalize it. So in the meantime you can see this quick-and-dirty made version. We are also working on a mouseclickable version for the web so everyone can experience the new retrieval interface and its system behind it. Stay tuned.

]]> http://digitalvolvelles.wordpress.com/2008/07/16/movie-about-how-it-works/feed/ 8 melse http://digitalvolvelles.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/digital-volvelles-at-the-mall-galleries/ http://digitalvolvelles.wordpress.com/2008/05/28/digital-volvelles-at-the-mall-galleries/#comments Wed, 28 May 2008 23:43:06 +0000 Melanie http://digitalvolvelles.wordpress.com/?p=154 ]]>

Finally our little baby will be ready for some live testing. Our Multitouch-Table with the wheels-interface will be presented in the context of the Final Degree Show of the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. If you are around London from the 13th of June to the 19th of June feel free to stop by and have a look and feel!

Entrance to the Mall Galleries:

Things that happen every day right outside the Mall Galleries:

Location: Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1Y 5BD

Opening Times: Friday 13 June to Thursday 19 June – 10am to 5pm

Official URL: www.macd2008.com

What you see in the video is the hardware for the Digital Volvelles project. The app that is being used is just a Flash application that is bundled with the touchlib project: 

I tested the procedure to connect a Wii Remote (Wiimote) via Bluetooth with both a Mac Mini as well as a MacBook in Bootcamp with Windows XP. However, I cannot guarantee that it works with all Macs in Bootcamp. Definitely a problem is, that I’ve got only a German XP for testing purposes. Thus I can’t guarantee that I found the right translations for the names of buttons and labels in the XP Bluetooth wizard.

1. In “Systems Preferences” go to “Bluetooth devices”
2. If there already is a Wiimote listed, press “Remove” (yes, it’s tedious but I could not figure out another way.)
3. Click “Add Device”
4. Select “Device is ready to be found”
5. On your Wiimote click both 1 & 2
6. Immediately click “Search devices” in Bluetooth devices window.
7. After Bluetooth devices have been found select “Nintendo RVL…” and click Next.
8. Choose “No key necessary” and click “next”. Attention: Wiimote must still be blinking after this step. If you’ve done everything right a bubble should appear over Windows’ task bar which tells you “New HID device found”.
9. Start Wii yourself’s demo.exe. A Dos shell window opens up with the message “Searching for Wiimote”
10. Press 1 & 2 buttons of Wiimote if not blinking. Attention: demo.exe should now tell you “Connected!” behind “Searching for Wiimote”.
11. Close demo.exe.
12. Open up the application in which you want to use your Wiimote e.g. Johnny Chung Lee’s Wii Whiteboard. Attention: I was not able to use the exe that was provided on the download page of the project’s Sourceforge page. I had to open up the project in Visual Studio (I used the VS Express 2008 version that is freely available on Microsoft’s homepage) and press the play button in the menu bar (next to “debug”). Then everything worked just fine.

I hope your virus scanner will try to kill if you’re about to open a downloaded, zipped exe from the Internet

I’ve been able to get hold of an old frame made of perforated metal plates. I reassembled the parts in a way that I’ve got a frame for my multi-touch display. Currently it has the table form factor but it can easily be readjusted to be a console or even a panel.

The multi-touch display itself is made of an acrylic glass plate in which infrared light is being emitted from the sides by 24 infrared leds. Thus the light is being endlessly reflected internally in the plate. If a finger is touching the plate the optical effect of light frustration will take place that effects light to be emitted vertically on the frustration place (the point where your finger tip is touching the display). Onto the back of the display where a back projection foil is mounted an image is projected by a video beamer (a Panasonic PT-AX200E). The display is being scanned by a webcam with a removed infrared light filter (a Philips SPC900NC with this lens). A Mac Mini is producing the image that is projected by the beamer onto the display and is doing touch calculations with the help of Touchlib.

Here are some pictures from the current state of it: