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Wearable Depth-Sensing Projection System Makes
Any Surface Capable of Multitouch Interaction
Researchers From Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon Create OmniTouch Technology PITTSBURGH—OmniTouch,
a wearable projection system developed by researchers at Microsoft Research and Carnegie
Mellon University, enables users to turn pads of paper, walls or even their own
hands, arms and legs into graphical, interactive surfaces.
OmniTouch employs a depth-sensing camera,
similar to the Microsoft Kinect, to track the user’s fingers on everyday
surfaces. This allows users to control interactive applications by tapping or
dragging their fingers, much as they would with touchscreens found on smartphones
or tablet computers. The projector can superimpose keyboards, keypads and other
controls onto any surface, automatically adjusting for the surface’s shape and
orientation to minimize distortion of the projected images.
“It’s conceivable that anything you
can do on today’s mobile devices, you will be able to do on your hand using
OmniTouch,” said Chris Harrison, a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. The
palm of the hand could be used as a phone keypad, or as a tablet for jotting
down brief notes. Maps projected onto a wall could be panned and zoomed with
the same finger motions that work with a conventional multitouch screen.
Harrison was an intern at Microsoft
Research when he developed OmniTouch in collaboration with Microsoft Research’s
Hrvoje Benko and Andrew D. Wilson. Harrison will describe the technology on
Wednesday (Oct. 19) at the Association
for Computing Machinery’s Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
(UIST) in Santa Barbara, Calif.
A video demonstrating OmniTouch and
additional downloadable media are available at: http://www.chrisharrison.net/index.php/Research/OmniTouch
The OmniTouch device includes a short-range
depth camera and laser pico-projector and is mounted on a user’s shoulder. But
Harrison said the device ultimately could be the size of a deck of cards, or
even a matchbox, so that it could fit in a pocket, be easily wearable, or be
integrated into future handheld devices.
“With OmniTouch, we wanted to capitalize on the tremendous surface area
the real world provides,” said Benko, a researcher in Microsoft Research’s
Adaptive Systems and Interaction group. “We see this work as an evolutionary
step in a larger effort at Microsoft Research to investigate the unconventional
use of touch and gesture in devices to extend our vision of ubiquitous
computing even further. Being able to collaborate openly with academics and
researchers like Chris on such work is critical to our organization’s ability
to do great research — and to advancing the state of the art of computer user
interfaces in general.”
Harrison previously worked with
Microsoft Research to develop Skinput, a technology that
used bioacoustic sensors to detect finger taps on a person’s hands or forearm.
Skinput thus enabled users to control smartphones or other compact computing
devices.
The optical sensing used in
OmniTouch, by contrast, allows a wide range of interactions, similar to the
capabilities of a computer mouse or touchscreen. It can track three-dimensional
motion on the hand or other commonplace surfaces, and can sense whether fingers
are “clicked” or hovering. What’s more, OmniTouch does not require calibration
— users can simply wear the device and immediately use its features. No
instrumentation of the environment is needed; only the wearable device is
needed.
The Human-Computer Interaction
Institute is part of Carnegie Mellon’s acclaimed School of Computer Science. Follow the school on Twitter @SCSatCMU.
Contact:
Byron Spice
412.268.9068
bspice@cs.cmu.edu
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cs.cmu.edu
