CHALKmt is a multi-touch chalk board application that I made using AS3. CHALKmt allows multi-user/multi-touch interaction of Chalk Boards that can be scaled/rotated/moved and even wiped clean!
There are 2 versions available for download (Wall & Table). The difference between the 2 is the number and position of the '+' buttons that add the Chalk Boards to the screen. The Wall version (ChalkMTWall_Beta 1.0.rar) has 2 top left & top right, while the table version (ChalkMT_Beta 1.0.rar) has 4 on each corner.
This just makes the layout easier for the different Multi-touch setups people are using.
I hope you like it, and as always your feedback is welcome!
As we have been promising, there is now a version available for download of touchWorldWind. Please note that touchWorldWind is still a beta version and has only been released due to popular demand. There are still some ironing out to do with some of the gestures etc, that Taha and I are working on…
POP!mt (Beta 3.1) is now a Multi-player Bubble wrap game for 1-4 Players.
How to Play:
The aim is to pop all your bubbles before the other players do. The first player to do so will be prompted with a “Player x Wins” screen. Pressing Reset clears the canvas of pressed bubbles and starts the game again.
What's New?
- New Player VS CPU 'timed' mode - Added 'Exit' and 'Continue' buttons - Selection of 'Widescreen' or 'Normal' table format
Check out the screenshots below and like always, feedback is welcomed!
This is a multi-touch Memory game I made called MATCHmt.
The object of the game is to turn over pairs of matching icons by pressing the tiles. If the icons match, then they are removed from the board. If not, they are returned to their original state. Once all the icons have been matched, the game is over and you win!
It’s a very simple game currently using Farm Icons, but it can be very addictive! It has been designed for kids and adults of all ages.
Hopefully simple games like these will inspire more games...
It is written in Flash AS3 and uses touchlib's OSC to send touch events to the game.
Due to a confusion between the NUI developed Application called TouchEarth by Pawel Solyga which is an interface to Google Earth and touchEarth~NWW Edition that Taha and I have developed, we have decided to change the name of our application from touchEarth~NWW Edition to touch~WorldWind aka touchWW, to stop any confusion from occuring between the 2 excellent applications.
POP!mt is now a Multi-player Bubble wrap game for 2-4 Players. The aim is to pop all your bubbles before the other players do. The first player to do so will be prompted with a “Player x Wins” screen (see below screenshots) Pressing Reset clears the canvas of pressed bubbles and starts the game again.
I got the idea to make this game from this post and also flash Bubble Wrap game that I’d play to “de-stress” at work. After seeing the above post and the request for Multi-touch from Nuiman, I thought “How hard can that be?” and that’s when POP!mt was born.
At this stage the game uses Mark’s Touch library (as I want to make my own) which can be found here:
I’ve added some screen shots of the game and a Beta version for whoever wants to give it a go.
Feedback is welcomed!
Click the link below to download the game: POP!mt 2.0 Beta (File Size: 1.39MB)
There is also a quick video on YouTube (or older post here:) showing the very first version in action.
This is the first test of my NASA WorldWind Multi-Touch Plugin. It uses Touchlib's OSC and NASA WorldWind 1.4. The Video was filmed on my ORION Multi-Touch DI setup.
This test is to show the Zoom and Pan functionality since the modification to the code for panning sensitivity at different altitudes.
There is still the adding of the 'Tilt' function to come, and the 2 finger rotate bug to be fixed properly. I will post more when the code is improved.
I measured one of my lasers and the angle is pretty tight. It measures approx 75-80 degrees (didn't have a protractor! will get one though ;D )
I placed a couple of A4 sheets of paper down on my surface to illustrate the IR laser spread.
I suppose for US$4.30 thats the limitation! I bought 4 of the laser modules, and placement is going to have to be spot on, but it should be OK i think.
The line lens can be replaced with an acrylic rod to maximize angle, but that will be done later if the placement becomes an issue.
Please be careful when playing with High Power IR lasers! especially when you're testing them. I don't want people doing damage to their eyes by staring at the beam of invisible light.
This is my first attempt at implementing a cheap IR laser into the ORION V2.
Essentially the laser creates a horizontal beam of InfraRed light approx 1mm off the glass, which is broken when fingers make contact with the surface of the glass.
This results in the IR camera seeing a bright 'Blob' where the finger has touched the glass.
A great solution to the limitation of using the Multi-touch screens during the day or under a lot of ambient lighting. A big thankyou to AlexP for the Laser idea!
And don't forget to visit the post at the NuiGroup forum here
It's been a while since I have updated this site, and to those who visit regularly it's about time I said something! So, at the moment I am adding improvements to the NASA World Wind multi-touch plugin, and at this stage there still seems to be a rotating issue. As you pull your fingers apart the globe zooms in and the software detects that the fingers are moving away from each other at speed. The problem is that the rotate function is very similar. It is very hard to drag 2 fingers away from each other without rotating them slightly around a central point, hence rotate and zoom seem to be tied. It is something that I will need to debug for some time to get right (otherwise I will remove the rotate function!)
Also I am currently toying with the idea of Multi-touch Texas Hold'em and a Touch event based BlackJack. The BlackJack doesn't need to be Multi-touch, I just think it would be nice in my AppLoader menu as one of the games ;-)
As more information becomes available I will let you know.
When I fully tested the plugin I found that it was all over the place. So I recompiled the plugin and I fixed some issues like correct long/lat movement, fixed pinch and spread measurements and now I'm looking into why it goes weird when you reach the dateline / poles. Also the rotate is a little off and needs attention.
Try this one out for some fixes, but more updates soon… (hopefully)
Ok, so it's been a long time coming, and I have stumbled onto a plugin for NASA World Wind. http://oldspeak.net/worldwind/ Unfortunately, this version doesn't work :( However, our good friend at NUI Skeeet, has re-compiled it, and we have a working version!
Here's a quote from the original website: WorldWind Multitouch Plugin
This is a rudimentary, stub, C# WorldWind plugin which listens for multitouch input using the TUIO protocol, and interprets a basic set of finger gestures to control WorldWind. Supported gestures are single finger drag to spin the globe, pinch and spread to zoom, and two-finger rotate to roll the camera.
Copy DanTouchEarthPlugin.dll into your WorldWind 'Plugins' folder, start WorldWind, and use the Plugins menu to load the 'DanTouchEarthPlugin' plugin. Once the plugin is loaded, it will start listening for TUIO events. Next, use touchlib (run OSC.exe) or (easier) the JAVA TUIO_Simulator to generate TUIO events.
Please see the original post at NUIGroup here for more info.
The ORION mt table has been one of the smoothest/responsive DI (Diffused Illumination) tables that I have built. Below is a video of the ORION mt in it's prototype state.
You can view the original post on the NuiGroup forum here
Please see the Showcase post on Nui Group forums here:
Here is a short explanation on how it was built.
Rear Diffused Illumination: DI - The Theory:
Infrared light is shined at the screen from below the touch surface from. A diffuser is placed on the bottom of the touch surface. When an object touches the surface it reflects more light than the diffuser or objects in the background. The extra light is sensed by an Infrared camera. Below are pictures illustrating the effect of DI and also a screenshot an image captured by the camera.
The above images and text have been extracted from the NUI Group wiki
The Box: Made out of 12mm craft wood (MDF), the box is 710mm(w) x 775mm(l) x 655mm(h). I left a section on the top of the box so that I could mount a small mirror to increase projection throw.
The Projector: For the projection I'm using a SHARP DLP projector Model: PGM15S
Table Specs: My PC is an AMD Athlon 64X2 Dual Core 3600+ with 2GHz RAM, Nvidia GeForce 7600gt Graphics Card. Sharp PG-M15S projector, Frosted Glass as diffuser/projection/surface.
The resolution that I am using is 1024x768 (DVI to DVI).
WebCam Specs:
The camera is an Xbox Vision 360 (AUD$50) (I’m using 320x240 res @ 60fps) This camera was fairly easy to modify the IR filter.
Also our friends Jose & Vasco (jmccd) from NUI Group have summarized our posts on the forum and made a pdf guide which you can download here
In the ORION mt there are 3 illiminators. I’ve drawn up a crappy picture in MS Paint to show the layout of the illuminators. (1x 140 IR Leds, 1x 80 IR Leds and a smaller 45 Led illuminator too!)
Illuminator number 1 is the 140 IR led I got from a mate. Number 2 is the 80 IR Led I made up, and Number 3 is the 45 Led one. The purple border represents the physical screen projection size in relation to the illuminators and the box.
The need for more IR light was due to the fact that during the day or close to a IR light source (overhead lights or the sun) the IR that I was generating was not enough to receive clear blobs.
WebCam & Projector Placement: Here are some pictures to illustrate the camera, mirror and projector placements in the ORIONmt. I originally had a camera angle issue where i wanted to place the camera in the middle of the floor facing upwards, however I could not capture the entire screen. To overcome this, I ended up moving the camera to reflect of the 2nd mirror. That way I can capture the entire screen (with overscan)
See below:
I have also added a beamer/mirror placement applet that may help with design of your own multi-touch display.
IR Illuminators - detail The 140IR LED Illuminator was originally bought by my mate from ebay, and I found one similar on ebay (after typing in the search bar of ebay "140 IR Led"), so here are some specs on it.
- Built-in sensor (which I taped over)
- Illuminating range: Detecting range is 80m, viewing range is 60m (outdoor)
- Definition Consumed power: 18W
- Wave length : 850nM
- Structure: All weather aluminum and reinforced glass
- Power: DC 12V 1000mA
Because of the narrow beam of this IR illuminator, I was getting a large hotspot on the glass. To get around this, I have angled the 140 IR Illuminator so that the light is emitted and reflected off the side wall of the box. (please see above pics)
Also, the placement of the illuminators can be seen in the picture below...
Glass Specs The sheet of glass is 4mm thick, 71cmx56cm frosted (sandblasted) on one side for the diffuser/projection surface. It was bought from a glass manufacturer, cut to size while I waited and cost about AUD$40-50.
AppLoader (+ user background image) is now available. I have modified the code slightly to allow for a background image of your choice to be displayed.
Click on the link to download: AppLoader.rar (Size: 3.33Mb) Screenshots:
A long Press (5 seconds) will activate the pop-up menu to allow you to exit the program by pressing 'x'...see above pics
I have also written this easy guide for anyone who wants to make there own.
Before i start, I have included the files needed to run your own AppLoader so don't worry. :-) Also, I am an absolute beginner at flash so if I can do it, so can you!
I have also included the source files if you wanna make your own changes too :) ... I didn't write this program (and I can't find out who did - it's not in the readme on the SVN), but it's really easy to modify so here goes...
Getting Started:
1) Download the attached file below.
2) Once you have extracted the files, they should be added in your [b]'deploy'[/b] directory (e.g. C:\Multitouch\touchlib\AS3\src\deploy and make sure that the global flash security settings link to the swf or folder.
(I selected my entire directory (/src) and added it to the site to make sure that any program I put in the 'src' or 'deploy' directory will run without an issue. )
Adding Apps / Editting AppLoader:
So now I'm gonna try and explain how to edit it... There is a script inside the AppLoader.as file that enables custom background images when activated. I have already done this and given you the AppLoaderBack.exe file for that.
The Background image can be changed at any time by changing the file "\deploy\www\img\apploaderBack.jpg".
Applications can be added by editing the file "\deploy\www\xml\applist.xml"
I edited the applist.xml file and added the name of the program I wanted. Under the Category in the applist.xml file you will find the name of the program (e.g. WaterRipples) and the description to be displayed (Water Ripples for fun). The AppLoader will then look for the file “WaterRipples.swf” in the ‘deploy’ directory to try and load it when the load button is pressed. (NOTE: AppLoader only loads .swf files).
If you change the ‘name’ in the applist.xml file, then you need to change the .swf name in the deploy directory.
Here’s a sample of my applist.xml file:
<app> <name>WaterRipples</name> <body>Water Ripples for fun</body> </app>
Sometimes if though you do this, the app still wont load! I’ve found that a different build of the app (.swf) may fix this.
To get the screenshots and thumbnails to work, you’ll need to put the files under "\deploy\www\img\apps" They are (E.g. “WaterRipples_screenshot.jpg” and “WaterRipples.png") You must make the name the same as the name listed in the applist.xml file for the images to be displayed. The Thumbnail size default is 72x72 and the Screenshot file is 395x295.
I’m running 2 types of Ripples. One is the default (Blue screen - ripples.swf) and the other is called WaterRipples (by wSatori), which can be customizable to display a video background, pebbles, still images...etc.
This blog has been designed for a Multi-touch DI setup I made called ORION mt. Here are some apps to show the performance of the Multi-Touch interface. Please see the original post on Nui Group forums here:
I am up to the stage where building a more professional frame for the table is required, so I downloaded Google SketchUp and created a 3D model of the ORION Multi Touch Table. It's very basic and is only intended as a visual aid for my engineering friend (more so for dimensions) who will help me design the frame properly.
