Friday, April 8, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
PAX East - Complete
Day 3 was a complete success from my stand point. We ran again for the entire show with only a bit of a hiccup when I pushed the currently underpowered CPU to it's limits.
As I'd been telling people at the show, the device I had on hand was my development hardware which is purposely underpowered CPU wise. This is to assist in our load testing process. Unfortunately, I can get a bit excited about how much we _can_ do on the underpowered box. The result is that I was running UniTUIO's Detonator, Torchlight, MT4j Shell, PyMT Shell, D20Pro _and_ MapTools on the poor thing. The graphics driver game up the ghost for a moment, which required an embarrassed pause on my part, followed by a the system picking up it's pieces and returning to a fully functional state.
From a purely developer standpoint, this was a great result. The application load I was presenting on the little guy was way over the top for most low end systems. Despite that the system continue to function as a touch interface until OpenGL froze.
This is the type of problem which wouldn't even be relevant to a production build where the touch layer runs a service. CCV froze along with the rest due to the graphic driver dropping out.
The rest of the event was lovely. I had lots of company throughout the day and plenty of happy people who were excited by seeing D20Pro and MapTools running on our Multitouch table.
As I'd been telling people at the show, the device I had on hand was my development hardware which is purposely underpowered CPU wise. This is to assist in our load testing process. Unfortunately, I can get a bit excited about how much we _can_ do on the underpowered box. The result is that I was running UniTUIO's Detonator, Torchlight, MT4j Shell, PyMT Shell, D20Pro _and_ MapTools on the poor thing. The graphics driver game up the ghost for a moment, which required an embarrassed pause on my part, followed by a the system picking up it's pieces and returning to a fully functional state.
From a purely developer standpoint, this was a great result. The application load I was presenting on the little guy was way over the top for most low end systems. Despite that the system continue to function as a touch interface until OpenGL froze.
This is the type of problem which wouldn't even be relevant to a production build where the touch layer runs a service. CCV froze along with the rest due to the graphic driver dropping out.
The rest of the event was lovely. I had lots of company throughout the day and plenty of happy people who were excited by seeing D20Pro and MapTools running on our Multitouch table.
Saturday, March 12, 2011
PAX East -- Day 2
We ran the table for the entire show time today without any real hitch. I have one section of the table (a corner) which is not responding as well as I would like. I should be able to adjust that section in the am before the event floor opens.
Other than that I was very pleased with the turn out for and interest for the table. I met some friends who I met through PAX Prime. Very nice to see everyone again.
I'm in "the alley" behind the booth due to giant sodium lights which are apparently brighter than the sun. We've created a "Secret" passage from the main booth to the Locus. It's interesting the number of visitors I've received at my tucked away location.
I'll take some photos tomorrow and show the results of our funky space and what our current developer build looks like. We've nearly completed our physical housing build design. As soon as that's sorted I hope to post pictures of the completed system. Probably by GenCon.
Time to recharge the batteries. Oh, day 2 -- success (I survived)
Other than that I was very pleased with the turn out for and interest for the table. I met some friends who I met through PAX Prime. Very nice to see everyone again.
I'm in "the alley" behind the booth due to giant sodium lights which are apparently brighter than the sun. We've created a "Secret" passage from the main booth to the Locus. It's interesting the number of visitors I've received at my tucked away location.
I'll take some photos tomorrow and show the results of our funky space and what our current developer build looks like. We've nearly completed our physical housing build design. As soon as that's sorted I hope to post pictures of the completed system. Probably by GenCon.
Time to recharge the batteries. Oh, day 2 -- success (I survived)
Friday, March 11, 2011
PAX East - Day 1
We're showing the Locus at the Geek Chic booth at PAX East this year.
The Locus is the result of the Multitouch work I've done thus far to develop a coffee table Rear Projection DSI system.
I was happily surprised to find out that there were a fair number of people who'd heard of the table already and were eager to get their hands on it.
The final verdict? Day 1 was a success.
The Locus is the result of the Multitouch work I've done thus far to develop a coffee table Rear Projection DSI system.
I was happily surprised to find out that there were a fair number of people who'd heard of the table already and were eager to get their hands on it.
The final verdict? Day 1 was a success.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Worst blogger, ever.
Since my last post was in October, I've decided I'm the worst blogger ever.
Despite this, many interesting developments have kept me busy. I'm deeply in broiled in a project to monetize my Touch Table work. In an effort to drop cost and ensure a top notch product, I've been doing a lot of testing and development with cameras, illumination and lenses. Unfortunately, I can't post this information quite yet.
However, if you're reading this, you're probably hoping for the camera summary I promised back in October. I'm more than happy to share my findings, the results just aren't in a happy, postable document currently.
I will say this, resolution to frame rate are certainly key. I'm not done with the HD camera market, however, I'm using a 640x480 camera with a 100fps framerate for my build these days. This is primarily a place holder till a higher resolution camera can fill its shoes. My ideal is a 1024x1024 (or greater in either dimension) 100fps camera operating over usb3.0. Point Grey and Natural Point both have future offerings which may fill this need. It will be a different world for those of us who are looking to handle small objects in addition to solid finger/gesture tracking.
I'll be back and post more. It just may be awhile.
Despite this, many interesting developments have kept me busy. I'm deeply in broiled in a project to monetize my Touch Table work. In an effort to drop cost and ensure a top notch product, I've been doing a lot of testing and development with cameras, illumination and lenses. Unfortunately, I can't post this information quite yet.
However, if you're reading this, you're probably hoping for the camera summary I promised back in October. I'm more than happy to share my findings, the results just aren't in a happy, postable document currently.
I will say this, resolution to frame rate are certainly key. I'm not done with the HD camera market, however, I'm using a 640x480 camera with a 100fps framerate for my build these days. This is primarily a place holder till a higher resolution camera can fill its shoes. My ideal is a 1024x1024 (or greater in either dimension) 100fps camera operating over usb3.0. Point Grey and Natural Point both have future offerings which may fill this need. It will be a different world for those of us who are looking to handle small objects in addition to solid finger/gesture tracking.
I'll be back and post more. It just may be awhile.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Reposting some camera data I sent to NUIGroup today
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. I’ll just outline in brief some of the camera tests I’ve been running in the last month:
Prosumer webcams:
Logitech C910
Logitech C600
Agama V-2025
Consumer:
PS3Eye
GearHead WCF2600HD
Professional:
Firefly FMVU-13S2C-CS
Firefly FMVU-03MTM
Of the cameras listed above the Firefly 03MTM and the Logitech C910 are certainly the frame rate and field of view kings. Both the C910 and the Firefly cameras (color and BW) have larger sensors then the PS3eye. This means a wider field of view is possible with a smaller distortion. Even with this, I suggest a low to no distortion lens. I’m currently arranging to evaluate a handful of low/no distortion lenses with the above cameras. When that is done I’ll post a write up on all of the cameras and the CS/M12 mount lenses tested on each.
However, to remain true to why I’m posting in this thread. All of the cameras, including the Firefly suffer significant frame rate drops when used with CCV versus reacTIVision and TouchLib. I’m not sure why this is loss is so high in CCV.
With the C910 I was able to manage 1280x960 @ 15fps via settings. This translated to roughly 3 - 7 fps in CCV. I tested with 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4. In the other two processing packages I was getting 15 - 30 fps with the C910.
With the Firefly BW (still debugging some driver issues with the color cam) I was able to get a very solid 30 fps at 640x480. This has little advantage over the PS3eye other then a larger sensor so wider FOV and the image was significantly crisper.
The Agama and GearHead cameras were underwhelming.
Again, it is worth stating the current the Color High Res Firefly MV is not responding in CCV. I’m working with the Point Grey dev team to fix this issue.
Prosumer webcams:
Logitech C910
Logitech C600
Agama V-2025
Consumer:
PS3Eye
GearHead WCF2600HD
Professional:
Firefly FMVU-13S2C-CS
Firefly FMVU-03MTM
Of the cameras listed above the Firefly 03MTM and the Logitech C910 are certainly the frame rate and field of view kings. Both the C910 and the Firefly cameras (color and BW) have larger sensors then the PS3eye. This means a wider field of view is possible with a smaller distortion. Even with this, I suggest a low to no distortion lens. I’m currently arranging to evaluate a handful of low/no distortion lenses with the above cameras. When that is done I’ll post a write up on all of the cameras and the CS/M12 mount lenses tested on each.
However, to remain true to why I’m posting in this thread. All of the cameras, including the Firefly suffer significant frame rate drops when used with CCV versus reacTIVision and TouchLib. I’m not sure why this is loss is so high in CCV.
With the C910 I was able to manage 1280x960 @ 15fps via settings. This translated to roughly 3 - 7 fps in CCV. I tested with 1.2, 1.3, and 1.4. In the other two processing packages I was getting 15 - 30 fps with the C910.
With the Firefly BW (still debugging some driver issues with the color cam) I was able to get a very solid 30 fps at 640x480. This has little advantage over the PS3eye other then a larger sensor so wider FOV and the image was significantly crisper.
The Agama and GearHead cameras were underwhelming.
Again, it is worth stating the current the Color High Res Firefly MV is not responding in CCV. I’m working with the Point Grey dev team to fix this issue.
Quick note about the new CCV 1.4 release!
The new version is available for download. The key update points are separate slider configs for Fingers versus Fiducials. Read more about it on the NUIGroup blog.
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