[Plusea] made her own touchpad using some anti-static gloves and an Arduino. This proof of concept is fairly small, but the system could be scaled quite large if you could find the fabric. She cut apart the anti-static glove, mounted it and wired it to the Arduino. A special piece is made to fit over the finger that is also wired to the Arduino. The location of where she touches is determined by the resistance between the finger and each corner. Watch the video on the instructable to see how it measures.
She mentions that there are a few different ways to build it, some which would not require anything on your finger, but would use another piece mounted behind the touchpad. The method she is currently using though, would allow for the fabrick to be any size or shape, even molded around something.
Would Multi-Touch be possible with this type of tech? Could the material be thin enough to project onto?
Wait yes Multi-Touch would be possible, in much the way shutter glasses work in 3D applications. I’m sure most readers could understand this concept.
Multitouch would definitely be possible, but you’d probably want to break up the update intervals and only read one value at a time. Not sure how that would work with the other fingers still attached, but I’m sure it’s possible.
This a very cool concept but I can see that reliability of the material might be a little questionable. Depends on the application I supppose
Multitouch could be done by having two or more fingers with separate wires to them where it could switch which finger is connected and poll them separately. I think it may also be possible to have isolated circuits which only share the path from their own finger to the corners. I may be corrected on that one, but if they both have isolated voltage sources, I think you can do it.
wow! really funny, now i can repair my touchpad :)
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Dude ow spam sense is overloading! But at least it came with a semi useful comment.
I had no idea that separate voltage sources could make multi-touch work I woulda thought you would need to switch between the two inputs.
Well, i just bought a perfectly fine wacom graphire 2 off craigslist today for $10, but regardless i would like to see where she takes this.
something practical for a designer; maybe, maybe not.
a sweet toy; definately…
I have a bunch of old powermac G4 trackpads that i havnt been able to re-pupose yet, havnt dove into that synaptics stuff explaining how to interface them… anyone have some tips? titaniumexposeATgmailDOTcom
I wonder if this could be used as (or under) carpet in your house?? You could record where people walk the most and have a record of where an intruder went if they broke into your house.
thanks alot for this useful post!
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But seriously, amazing post and thanks alot !
I look ahead to your next post !
:)