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DIY Multi-Touch Tabletop "Surface PC"

Posted by kdawson on from the beneath-the-surface dept.

notthatwillsmith writes "We've all seen the nifty demos of Microsoft's Surface PC. Now Maximum PC details how you can put together your own multi-touch tabletop PC. The article shows how you can build the cabinet and combine that with a standard PC, a decent projector, about $350 worth of assorted hardware (cameras, lenses, mirrors, and screens), and a handful of free apps to build your own Surface-like PC — without giving Microsoft $10,000."

7 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Already slowish by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a Coral-cached print version of the article.

  2. $350 huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's a $2 version

  3. I think yes by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    Given that the system uses frustrated total internal reflection, I imagine it would be quite sensitive to grease from the fingers and any other dirt that changes the refractive index at the surface of the acrylic?

    From playing with a real Surface in Vegas, I think the answer is yes - it appeared to have a few dead zones where presses were not registered very well.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  4. Will not replace the mouse / keyboard for a while by mrbene · · Score: 2, Informative

    It looks like this is getting less than 80% of the multitouch navigation events correct - rotating when the user intent is to zoom, zooming in when the user intends to zoom out, things like that. I hear MS Surface has the same issues.

    Mebbe in a bit. But for now, it's something that looks cool.

  5. Re:What about 2 mice? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Multipointer X has been in the mainline development branch of the Xorg X server for a year but wasn't released with X server 1.6.

    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=xorg_server_16&num=1

    It should be released in X server 1.7

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPX

  6. wiimote smartboard by Locklin · · Score: 3, Informative

    My wife built one of these "smartboard" like projects with a wii remote and a single infrared LED as per here. Not exactly multitouch, but it works pretty well; calibrates quickly and you can write on a projected image anywhere. It uses the IR camera over bluetooth on the wii remote to track the LED "pen", and emulates a mouse for windows XP.

    I'll be watching for a Linux version of the software. It would be pretty sweet to run presentations off my Linux netbook and be able to draw on a regular projected screen.

    --
    "Knowledge is the only instrument of production that is not subject to diminishing returns" -Journal of Political Econom
  7. Also see Jeff Han's multitouch surface by six11 · · Score: 4, Informative

    It looks like this article is implementing the system that Jeff Han made about a few years ago and famously presented at TED. I'm glad to see this DIY article out there since it is getting lots of people interested in physical hacking, but I wish it would have referenced what came before. Here's the UIST paper:

    Han, J. Y. 2005. Low-cost multi-touch sensing through frustrated total internal reflection. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Seattle, WA, USA, October 23 - 26, 2005). UIST '05. ACM, New York, NY, 115-118. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1095034.1095054