Though multi-touch interactive displays offer a range of possibilities, but their drawback is that they cannot become larger than arm’s length without giving up direct touch. This has till now prevented tabletop applications from including more than a few dozen on-screen objects. That is why, professor, Patrick Baudisch and his team has tried to come up with a multi-touch display.
They propose direct touch surfaces that are orders of magnitude larger by joining high-resolution multi-touch into back-projected floors, maintaining the interactive purpose of tabletop, which constitutes direct manipulation.
Their design is based on the frustrated internal reflection as it is capable of sensing pressure and hence allows the device to see user’s soles when touching the floor. This also helps to identify users and recognize foot postures. These two functions allow the floor to ignore inactive users, identify and track users through their shoes. It boasts of high-precision interaction which allows users to type on the keyboard using their feet!
This innovative development, Multitoe is the outcome of a research project by a group of scientists working at the Human Computer Interaction Lab of Professor Patrick Baudisch at the Hasso Plattner Institute.
Via: Hpi.Uni
