Multi-Touch Interaction

Bi-manual, multi-point, and multi-user interactions on a graphical interaction surface

While touch sensing is commonplace for single points of contact, multi-touch sensing enables a user to interact with a system with more than one finger at a time, as in chording and bi-manual operations. Such sensing devices are inherently also able to accommodate multiple users simultaneously, which is especially useful for larger interaction scenarios such as interactive walls and tabletops.

Since developing the FTIR (frustrated total internal reflection) technique, we’ve been experimenting with a wide variety of application scenarios and interaction modalities that utilize multi-touch input information. These are far more interesting than the typical poking-of-the-touchscreen or the gross silhouette gesturing found in most interactive installations of this scale. It is a rich area for research, and we are extremely excited by its potential.

The sensing technology is force-sensing, and provides unprecedented resolution and scalability, allowing us to create sophisticated multi-point widgets for applications large enough to accomodate both hands and multiple users.

[ www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKh1Rv0PlOQ ]
[ mrl.nyu.edu/~jhan/ftirtouch ]