So this is a long time coming. Many months ago I decided I wanted to try using capacitive foil.
After searching around for a while, I decided to try the Visual Planer's Interactive Foil. I found the local distributor for the US at Brookview Technologies. My sales contact there has been very helpful through the whole selling and shipping process. To build a good size prototype, I decided to go with the 50" 16:9 display.
So now I have the foil in hand, but nothing to attach it to. Time to put a call into my acrylic supplier, they also have a CNC machine so cutting the 1/2 acrylic to the exact size was a piece of cake. And the last bit of the puzzle was how to display the acrylic.
I've been working with Robeck Fluid Power Co. in Aurora OH. Another outstanding group when it comes to customer service and capabilities. I contracted them to build a display stand out of aluminum railing so that 1. it could be collapsible and easy to transport and 2. be able to change orientation between a vertical and horizontal display.
So, time is winding down for Collider. And I don't have a lot of things to finish, but I do have some critical things.
COMPLIANT LAYER...
Is slowly driving me insane. I keep thinking of ideas to pull it off. Then trying them, then failing horribly. At first it was ok, just discard the bad sheet, then move on. As time went on, looks like I got a little sloppier, or didn't take this or that into account, and ended up ruining a large piece of acrylic, ruining a large piece of rosco projection screen. Ruining some shorts. And just burning through my funds...thanks to freelance work to help keep it a float.
But, I'm trying not to get discouraged. So I press on. I'll just have to put in a new order for a new piece of acrylic. At least I can use the old one as a solid flat surface. Thankfully I have a spare piece of rosco, but it looks like I may be taking a step back to accomplish the compliant layer.
I was finally able to pull off the rail and squeegee method, but the silicone is full of bubbles. A LOT of bubbles. I cut a sample to see it through the projection, oh yeah, bubbles everywhere. SO, to try and turn lemons into lemonaide. I still rolled on the texturring to it, and it'll be at least a solid "backup" piece, just in case I cannot get one right in time.
So to any and all my readers, don't let the bumbs in the road get you down. It'll happen to the best of us. Nothing always goes as planned. And other words and phrased of encouragement I can offer.
At least writing about it made me feel a little better.
(^_^)//
Temporarily, I have shifted from the software side of things back to the hardware. For those of you looking for more Flash experiments, my appologies. The experimenting is going to be taking a little break while I work on 2 new hardware projects.
1. New FTIR table
Back to were I started, making a new FTIR table. I don't have everything planned out. I'm letting things come together organically. But here are the basic ideas I'm going for.
Almost 50" diagonally
Toshiba EW25U Projector
Rosco Grey
squeegeed compliant layer, rolled on method compliant layer
36" max height (or as close as possible)
So far so good, I've slowly been getting all the pieces I need, and now I'm finally beginning fabrication. LED rails, acrylic holding frame, table spec design.
2. Capacitive Foil
I finally received some income I've been looking forward to for quite a while. After debating with myself my ultimate intentions will all this multitouch experimentation, talking team up with a brilliant business mind, and a can-do personallity. I contacted a local distributor about purchasing a piece of capacitive foil.
True, it may not be multitouch (yet), but I've wanted to experiment with this kind of stuff from the start. And large scale, I mean 50" diagonal again 16:9 ratio. Something I can use to create a full scale demonstration of capabilities. Not just and idea, but an actual physical implimentation to show off.
The capacitive foil is on the way. I have a large piece of acrylic waiting for it to be applied on, I just need to build a stable frame to hold it up. And be able to swap from portrait to landscape.
And not to mention my practice of cross communication between computers and flash (in real time no less). There are interesting things right around the corner.
Here's the long and the short of it. I've been collaborating with Alexander Boxerbaum for an upcoming event in downtown Cleveland Ohio called Ingenuity Fest. Alex's project is called 36 Views of a Bridge, take a look at the previews, I think it looks amazing.
The plan is, the audience should be able to vote on which video(s) they like the most to change the order of the final playlist of all the videos. So the initial options are, vote online, vote with mobile devices and vote at a computer interface at the event. But with the event being focused on ingenuity, there needs to be something a little more than just computer and mouse... but what?... wait for it... Multi-touch Table and multi-touch Flash interface.
So here is the rundown:
One computer runs the multi-touch table and the voting
Each vote is sent to a web server via PHP to a MySQL database
the same PHP script can also collect votes from webpages and mobile devices
A seperate computer reads the votes from the database to reorder the video playlist every time the full playlist has completed
And there is the base functionality, in addition to that. There is a multi-touch magnifying glass feature built into the stage. Touch on the map and get a viewport of 3X magnification of the map. Just a little bit of spice added into the app.
There is still much to do to get the app finalized for the event. So I'll be working hard to get it ready in time to get the proper videos in and any design revisions to the app. I'm also trying to get a new table prototype ready in time.
After searching around for a while, I decided to try the Visual Planer's Interactive Foil. I found the local distributor for the US at Brookview Technologies. My sales contact there has been very helpful through the whole selling and shipping process. To build a good size prototype, I decided to go with the 50" 16:9 display.
Back to were I started, making a new FTIR table. I don't have everything planned out. I'm letting things come together organically. But here are the basic ideas I'm going for.
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