FAA Gets a Big-Screen Touch Table

Matt writes "Northrop Grumman, best known for missile systems and other military gear, has for years been selling the TouchTable as part of what it calls an ' integrated collaboration environment.' They delivered their TouchTable to the US Federal Aviation Administration last month and will showcase their technologies next week at a defense conference in London. There are two versions of the TouchTable; one with an 84-inch screen (1600x1200 resolution), the other with a 45-inch screen (1920x1080 resolution). Moving a hand across the surface pans the display' two fingers moving apart zooms it out; and two fingers moving together zooms it in. This simple interface allows users easily to change a view from miles above the Earth to a detailed layout of a single city block."

Comments

Re:Counter-intuitive zoom?

[Hennell]

Video on their website seems to show it better.

Re:Interface Design

[Dun Malg]

Moving the fingers apart to zoom out makes sense to me, you are enlarging the piece of the world/map to be displayed on the display. Enlarging a small piece of the visible map to take up more screen space is usually considered zooming in.

Re:Interface Design

[Dolphinzilla]

I've actually used this touch table and it works exactly like you want, if you rotate your two fingers while pulling them apart it will zoom AND rotate - if you just plant your fingers and rotate them about an imaginary point between your fingers the display will rotate about that point - the interface is very intuitive and easy to master in seconds

Microsoft Surface

[westlake]

It will be interesting to see if which came first - the FAA touch table or Microsoft's desktop computer. God I hope it was the FAA touch table. It would be too funny to see MS get blown out of the water after their big splash with that thing.

Reading the fine article:

Pressure sensitive surface allows multiple methods of information

Microsoft's Surface uses cameras to track input. The actual tabletop is nothing more than an ordinary acrylic panel used as a rear projection screen.

It should be easy to clean and difficult to break, scratch or stain.

The technology allows non-digital objects to be used as input devices. In one example, a normal paint brush was used to create a digital painting in the software. [In] using cameras for input, the system does not rely on [the] properties required of conventional touchscreen or touchpad devices such as the capacitance, electrical resistance, or temperature of the tool [being] used. Microsoft Surface

Surface can sense and interact with "domino" tagged objects, like a digital camera. What lurks below Micosoft's Surface

The Grumman maxes out at 1600x1200 for an 84" display. To my mind, that seems a little disappointing for a military-grade tactical display.

Surface at 1280x960 for a 30" display.

Re:Interface Design

[tyrione]

Or from the following notion:

You have a Cupboard before you. You are at armslength (your hands are close together with each one holding a cupboard door handle) from the cupboard doors. As you open the doors your arms extend to the left and right and you step forward to look inside the cupboard and at the contents of what lies within.

You don't close a cupboard and get closer to it. You pull away and your arms return to their closed door position.

Re:Interface Design

[th77]

The video in TFA clearly shows people moving their fingers apart to zoom in, and together to zoom out. The article got it wrong. In fact, it looks like that part of the article is from a press release, so that would mean than NG got their own damn system wrong. Idiots.

Re:Interface Design

[streak]

Being a developer of the touchtable, I can tell you that the article is backwards.
You spread your fingers to zoom in, and move them together to zoom out.