PAX West 2011 -- Mission Accomplished.

After the poor showing we provided at GenCon this year, we moved to a surface level touch system (IR MT Frame) for PAX.  The results were stunning.  Let me explain:

This was the view from standing behind the table

This was early in the day to boot.  The sun traced a path over the table the entire time we were demo'ing at the convention.  We had absolutely zero incidents of false touches or in ability to touch the screen -- amazing!

This was shot at the Geek Chic HQ in WA.  We dragged the table over to the bay to test in direct/indirect sunlight.

And here she is at the booth at PAX West 2011.  This is show with no flash.

An "action" shot!

The new tech allows for using virtually anything as a touch device, including spears apparently!

Most common question?  "Where's the projectors?" Answer: "We don't need no stinking projectors!"

Another fully body shot.  The canopy was added for use with the vision based system.  We liked it so much we included it this build as well.

One Red-Eye later, sleep is imminent. 

More preview content on the 60" table

quick post with previews for PAX Prime

I've been working on an LCD based screen which is, currently, only touch based with a max of 32 simultaneous events.

Here's two videos showing the table in action.  I'll post some true multitouch samples this week.  The first one is just cute...

here's a still of the table sitting on top of the 40" Locus Developer build

GenCon complete.

I'll post a real update shortly with information on the how the con went in detail and what kind of cool things are in the works officially now.

But to be brief (and get some sleep); The 'Con went wonderfully.  The tables were a big successes despite a pile of technical difficulties.  The flights to and from were terrible.  I was due to arrive yesterday evening, but instead I'm just now getting home today (the next day).

For a teaser...

Arrived at GenCon

Last year I came to GenCon and trusted the airlines to help me transport my screen technology to my chagrin.

Everything turned out okay last year, but this year we sent the core of our tables via FedEx to the hotel.  This lead to a very nice welcome as our packages checked in for us and they selected an awesome room!

So, here's the first pictures of the "tables" from this years GenCon -- more to follow!

Yes, these are boxes!  This is the camera's, cables, computers, and objects.  Screen's, projectors and enclosures are in a truck arriving tonight!

Computers and IR Light bars (in a computer box)  Also pictured are some backup diffusers for the prototype table that MindGene/D20Pro will be sporting.

Mini's, Fids, Mini-fids!  These are some sample fids on an acrylic sample pack from Evonik.  Oh, and some  tagged mini's.

Same as above just showing the tag on the Giant.

Quick preview post of the new locus in "action"

This is just a quick link to a self shot, one handed, Fruit Ninja experience.  I'll try for some decent footage, during and after GenCon!

And here are a couple of stills of the mock-up table running Dave's Mapper.

The "curtain" is some roscoe-grey I use as a light baffle on the working side of the table.

This build is using Diffused Illumination entirely.  The sides are less important to the over all experience, however, the production units will certainly have wooden sides.  The baffle around the screen is bamboo and the frame itself is walnut.  When Geek Chic makes a mock-up table from scraps, it reminds me how nice the wood they use for their production products is!

This build uses two cameras on some nice metal slide mounts.

Additionally, the IR light bars seen here are diffused using some stick on diffuser materials from Environmental Lights.  I found that to a double layer was as good as using florescent tube diffusers (which I'd been using previously).  Again, I'd like to stress that this is my dev table so I rarely attach anything in a permanent fashion.  Thus, the strewn light bars.

GenCon and Beyond

GenCon is around the corner.  I've been working my day job and then working on final build for the two tables we'll be showing at the 'Con this year.  We'll have a Locus MKII and "Spartacus" at the Geek Chic booth.  We'll also have the original Locus over at the D20Pro booth!

This is the first time we're going to be accepting pre-orders for our tables.  This makes be both nervous and excited.  I've been working in technologies and computers for almost 20 years professionally.  The sale of these tables means the inevitable "Support" demand will return in full force.  To account for a lot of this type of concern, I've attached 2 year warranties on all of the internal parts, but that only covers the hardware. 

Tables, and other technologies, of these sorts are certainly a hardware quagmire, however, like most hardware, without software it is just a pile of electronics.  So software is the key to making these things go and to accommodate this we've gotten together a pretty slick introductory package.  I'm still hashing out the licensing for including some of it properly, but that is just formalities and legalese.


[ DETAILS ]
Our current software bundle is designed to appeal to the casual video gamer, table top gamer and/or developers out there.  We're shipping the table with a handful of single person games/cooperative games such as Fruit Ninja, Angry Birds and Torchlight to name a few.  We're working with developers current to supply a handful of fun multitouch games ranging from simply Air Hockey to board games.  For table top gamers we are including D20Pro with a GM and small pack of guest licenses.  RPTools is also available for use on the tables for answering the needs for groups not using a D20Pro compatible system.

Developers get a slew of options for building their own applications.  MT4j and Eclipse come installed and ready for use.  Kivy the Python based multi-touch development environment.  Each of these will have a handful of demonstration/sample applications available as well.  To be honest, some of my favorite applications are demos in the MT4j shell collection.

The NUIT tables are also compatible with Surface 2.0 and Surface 1.0 content.  The Surface 2.0 SDK comes pre-installed for Windows developers wishing to play around with multi-touch.

The tables themselves will be running Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit).  Currently the hardware underneath is using the AMD A8 Lliano APU technology.  I've done some side by side testing with NVidia/Intel i3/i5/i7 technologies and have found the A8's to be extremely performant in comparison.  Additionally, the A8's produce significantly less heat!

Currently the tables are not running the touch libraries as a service, but this is just a matter of time before we're to that point.  This means that we still need the wireless keyboard/mouse handy for initial login.  However, once logged in and services are started, the keyboard can be put aside in exchange for a straight forward touch experience.

We're using a Shell application supplied by a friend/developer from the NUIGroup Forums as an application launcher.  This works rather well, but we are still working on customizing the look and feel of the shell itself.

All in all I feel we will have a strong showing for GenCon and PAX Prime a couple of weeks afterward!