Non-contact Interactive Displays

Large-scale, Interactive Digital Signage
Moving away from MakingThings/Teleos hardware and going straight Flash 9 w/modified hardware. We include standard button interaction, drag+sweep gesture recognition, multi-touch and ability to scale to almost any window dimension w/o the need for depth or rear-view tracking…

The Interactive Window is a back projected web-cam based system that can essentially turn any glass window (of any size) into a touch screen interface. This is a “non-contact interactive display” designed to be operated by intuitive human hand gesture. Gestures of press, push, scale and rotate are all programmable interactions of this technology. The system has the potential to be multi-touch (two handed gestures simultaneously recognized) and initial attempts at doing this have been successful.

Similar technologies are extremely expensive, have their own closed operating system and require multiple cameras. This platform is based on open source culture and is developed with Adobe Flash 3.0 development application - a widely available and popular development software, making the technology accessible to most (non-programming) designers and content developers. Additionally, this technology is based on projected light, so it easily scaleable and customizable in its size and proportions. Set up cost is extremely inexpensive by comparison, and thus, potentially very popular to the general public.

This updated “Interactive Mirror” presents a lower cost of entry into the interactive space and leverages open-source hardware/software to allow non-programmers and designers to develop digital spaces. We are not so much concerned with pixel-point precision and touch/pressure sensitivity… We are more interested in non-contact, gesture based interactive systems for information displays and exhibits that are easy to implement and open to designers.

Technician Article - “Touch”

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Sources of inspiration:

• Microsoft.com/surface
• Perceptivepixel.com
• Displax.com
• Inwindowoutdoor.com
• Adobe Interactive Window
• Infiniti Interactive Mirrors

CAM|Contemporary Art Museum

CAM|Contemporary Art Museum
Contemporary Art Foundation, Raleigh
http://cam.ncsu.edu/
Spring 2007 (ongoing)

Experimental research into alternative, interactive new media installations for education and entertainment. This form of large-scale digital exhibit, introduces designers to sensor data from external sources that utilize dynamic content creating a unique interactive experience that is both larger-than-life size and immersive in the experience. Utilizes Flash AS2, gesture recognition, infrared web camera tracking, Makingthings Teleos system and XML/RSS datasets.

[ IMI: Interactive Mirror Installation ]

This is experimental project into alternative, interactive new media installations for education and entertainment. “CAM,” no longer a “Contemporary Art Museum,” but keeping the acronym, seeks to get community involvement in artistic & creative events and hopes to infuse creativity into education in downtown Raleigh. It is not our intent with this project to turn designers into engineers. Our intention was based on the principle of having non-technologists work together with technology outside their expertise to produce artifacts that are informative, entertaining and promote an exchange of dialogue over design, technology and society. At the completion of this project typical design students in this research collaboration developed an understanding of technical design integration, a vocabulary of the field and a working knowledge on the application of technology in different disciplines. The initial large-scale, Interactive Mirror Installation, introduced designers to sensor data from external sources and utilized dynamic content creating a unique interactive experience.