Friday, May 2,2008 @ 4:50pm
17-year old develops multi-touch interface for Mac
Bridger Maxwell – a 17-year old from Orem, Utah – is currently developing a home-built multi-touch surface for Mac OS X, using a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) imaging method for a high school science project. Already creating a second incarnation, Maxwell improves on his previous design by using brighter LEDs mounted in a wooden frame. He uses an infrared camera to capture finger input, which appears to light up fingertips, when observed.
The design features three sides of the wooden frame with holes drilled for the LEDs to stick through, with the infrared camera mounted underneath. Maxwell used an open source solution called OpenTouch, and built onto it by developing a library to receive "Tangible User Interface Object" messages for Apple's Cocoa platform.
Maxwell also makes use of several Mac OS technologies, such as Core Animation for the overall presentation of the device's front-end.