Multi-Touch Success at last!

Crude but working!  Now it's refinement time, then on to final build.  Decided on Maple for the primary wood for the final box/coffee table last night as well.  Maple for the framing and major portions with Birch ply for the paneling.

 

Screen layering as follows:

=======  10mm Endlighten
-------  Rosco Grey (saggy but working)

 

The camera for this setup is still the GigaWare 640x480 cam with a 160 degree fish-eye lense.  It certainly looses quality at the edges of my screen.  


I've gotten two 720P camera's for use but need to desolder the autofocus elements and remove the ir-filters.  Then solder the focus mechanism back into place -- ugh.

Gaming on the Mock Up

Over last weekend my gaming group actually got a chance to use the mock up in non-touch mode.  At the time I was still waiting on my camera and lense for the setup.  The camera arrived today, so hopefully I'll have something to show with full touch in the next day or so.  

But back to the gaming!  Even in low tech, no special reveal during exploration the group loved using the table.  I was able to quickly illustrate large section of world maps and tactical areas without the players having to guess at what my hasty symbology was going to mean.  The down side is that when running games in the future, I might actually have to prep my maps in advance.  Still, this is absolutely the bed I'm planning to make for myself I better get used to sleeping in it (or not sleeping as the case may be).

The images I've included in this post do not show the actual setup we used.  Silly, tired self didn't take any photos of the game in session.  In the images attached I'm just demoing the screen with paper for a projection surface.  For the session I used a cut of my Rosco grey stapled to the wooden frame.  


For stretching the Rosco I've actually found stapling to be quite effective.  Using a large gauge staple gun staple similarly to stretching canvas.  I left the Rosco on for a 4 days of constant touch and test usage without any snags or distortion in the material.  

Important note:  Rosco grey blocks IR.  Yes this is information that is posted in the nuigroup's forums.  No, I hadn't found it in the forums when I switched from an FTIR to DSI setup.  As to the FTIR effect using the Endlighten + Rosco Grey -- excellent but required much pressure, so much in fact that I was concerned for the safty of the Endlighten.

The Framing

Initially, I designed the table for a minimal number of relfections.  Using one mirror I'd planned on having the measure roughly 36" across.  After creating the mock up inner frame, I decided that while 36" would be ideal for a game table, it was simply too wide for my space.

The final design I've settled on is 26" - 27" wide and 45" long.  This version uses 2 mirrors and has the projector at a jaunty angle.  Currently my mirrors are acrylic rear face jobs which I plan on using a DIY method I found on-line to remove the protective coating.  There is an interesting link in the comments to the article about an alternate product.  I'm probably going to try both depending on what I can get my hands on tonight.  Additionally, nuigroup has a post linking to lumenlab with a procedure very similar to the instructable.

[diagram]

In both cases the total height to projection surface is 19".

This is excluding the convertible I was considering.  A table top which rotated and maintained aspect ratio through magic.  Reality finally caught hold and I had to ditch the idea for its geometric reality was greater then I.

Building the Screen

This first image is of the endlighten, L brackets, Foil tape and IR Ribbon -- exciting!

Here we have the first length of ribbon added to an L bracket.  The depth of the shot really gives you an idea of how long this bar really is.

And put together, no tape yet:

Before taping, I tested the IR with my phone's camera...

I tacked the frame to the screen with small sections of foil tape and reinforced the power connector area from the IR reel with foil tape as well.  The flexibility of the connectors contacts made me rather nervous.  I insulated the connector with small pieces of electrical tape first.  Tacking the frame on allowed me to make sure that all of my edges lined up as I'd hoped.

Once I was satisified with my arrangement I applied a layer of foil tape around the entirty of the frame.

And then I apparently over wrote the image files for the remaining steps I took to create the the prototype I've been using.  How sad...

The story so far

A year ago I started the process of building a DI rig roughly 18"x12".  Nothing every came of this setup.  I tried to build my own illuminators and found that soldering is less fun after the 100th LED.  Especially when it's the placement of that 100th LED which burns out the previous 99.  Rather then invest in a better soldering gun and setting up sort of staging holding rig for the LED's I started the stalling/planning stage of project two.

My next build was a 19"x24" free standing screen using IR Pens crafted loving from old stinky Expo I markers.  This build was great for testing as well as for use as a drafting table in my shop.  I still use the pens as well.

This screen is made up of the following layers:

=======  1/8" Acrylic

-------  Rosco Grey

=======  3/4" Acrylic (buffed and polished for future FTIR use)

Testing the screen without projection met with much success!

Percission was somewhat lacking due to the cheap webcam I was using.  This wasn't the end of the world however as it was a proof of concept.

Then I added projection.  At the time I had (have) an old Sony LCD projector with a _huge_ (read Long) throw distance.  This was nice for projecting 100"+ art installations.  However, it required most of my shop and a large spinning mirror to vaporize... err.. wait, wrong project.  The throw distance requirement was extremely disheartening.  A quick search for front face mirrors led me to the purchase of some mylar-like mirror stuffs.  Very nice, have used in other projects since.  However, I've yet to use it as an actual mirror due to the difficult in stretching the material in such a way as to get a truly flat mirror.  To the credit of the material, I have not tried the clamp method the vendor suggested simply because it would add unacceptable additional size to the projects foot print.  Certainly not usable for a coffee table design.

As a result this table has become a fixture of the basement/shop's space. It's fate is still undetermined.

The difficulties with the Mirrors led me to a bit of a slump.  I still talked about the project and still puttered with it yet I made no real progress.

Finally, this past December (2009), my wife who has been very supportive of the project (read expensive hobby) thus far and perhaps was tired of seeing me moping around, presented me with a flexible budget and a reel of IR ribbon.  Thus was born the coffee table gaming surface which I've begun to create in earnest.

 Price       Product
------------------------------------------------------------------

$240.00  --  1 Spool of 850nm IR Ribbon + powersupply from
               Environmental Lighting
$230.00  --  1 pc. 43"x24" Endlighten Acrylic
$840.00  --  1 Projector, InFocus XS1 Moderate-Short-Throw
               projector 2'2" for a 49" diag according to
               projectorcentral.com
 $20.00  --  1 Gigaware (Radio Shack) WebCam
 $50.00  --  1 Roscoe Grey (oops, I'll get back to that)
  $2.50  --  1 roll of foil tape
  $8.50  --  2 L shaped aluminum 'bars' from Home Depot
-------  --  1 Pile of Scrap wood

Through all of this the nuigroup has been immensely helpful!