Multi-touch Table

The third piece of work that I really enjoyed was a project and research paper that we built in second year, in a module called Directed Study. This project, which was done in a group, consisted of writing a paper on a subject which we were interested in and also making a video that related to the topic.

Our group, which consisted of Olivia Kennedy, Mark O'Leary, and I choose the subject of multi-touch tables. We wrote a paper which described three different multi-touch systems, the first was Microsoft Thinsight which was developed by Microsoft in Cambridge, the second was The DiamondTouch Display developed by Mitsubishi Electronic Research Laboratories(MERL), and the third was F.T.I.R (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection), used in a number of different touch screens.

Along with describing the three types we also made an MT mini and an interactive whiteboard. We built the whiteboard using a wii controller and some inferred lights; here is an example of how we did it. Below is a video which shows us giving a description of each system along with a demonstration of our MT mini.

This project was a very enjoyable project, it gave me great experience with the different multi-touch systems that where out at the time and it was really good to work in a team. We also as a surprise got a comment on our video from the developer of the MT mini Seth Sandler, complimenting us on our descriptions of the three systems.

Below I have put a link to a tutorial video showing how to build an MT mini for anyone who wants to build one.
The MT mini

Flash Project

This second post is of a Flash project I created which I particularly enjoyed. I created a sequencer using Actionscript in Flash, and used Illustrator and Photoshop to create the interface. It was part of a 3rd year module called Interactive Multimedia. This is it up and running!!



In designing this application I tried to create a sequencer that primarily was easy for the user to use, and was astatically pleasing. I designed all buttons and sounds using illustrator and audacity respectively. I based the design of my sequencer loosely around a wind chime. I hoped that basing it on a familiar everyday object would help the user understand the sequencer better.

The sounds I used were based around a wind chimes sound. I used a 'kind of' pentatonic scale to match all the sounds together. To get the right pitch I brought a xylophone sound I got from The Freesound Project and brought it into audacity.



I started off with a mid range G flat. I altered it by cutting and fading out the ring at the end so that I got a sharper sound and I also brought the pitch down to C saved that and went back to the original and did the same for D, E, G, A, high C, high D and high E.

I also included some keyboard shortcuts which you are shown when you hover over the info icon. This was a very rewarding project and I learned a lot using Actionscript and Audasity. I look forward to working more with these programmes in the future.

The Watch and Boot Design

These next three posts are to show examples of some of the projects that I particularly enjoyed working on. The first one I'm going to talk about is an assignment I was given in 3rd Year in Design Visualisation to create a watch design and ski boot design from scratch. Here I will describe the steps we went through. The design itself wasn't the point of the assignment it was an excuse to get good experience using Illustrator and Photoshop.


We did the basic vector sketch in Illustrator:

Then we did monochromatic shading using some Photoshop brushes:

We then added some colour and gave it a logo to make it look more like an advetisement:



For the boot project we were asked to do the same thing, I researched on some ski boot websites for inspiration and this is the final project that I came up with:



I really enjoyed this project and learned a lot when using Photoshop and Illustrator.