Video: Schematic shows multi-touch wall. Runs on Flash. Built with Flex.

Posted by on Jun 25, 2009 in Cool stuff, Flash Platform, Video | 2 comments

Microsoft has (rightfully) gotten a lot of attention with their Surface multi-touch table. Schematic has now raised the bar. In Cannes at the Cannes Lions festival, they were showing a 3.5m (12ft) x 1.5m (5ft) multi-touch/multi-user intelligent wall which puts the Surface to shame.

The massive display gives attendees instant access to the complete festival program, 3D maps of the event and surrounding area, and information on local restaurants and bars. The Touchwall also helps delegates schedule meetings with each other and trade contact information via email. The presentation layer is built with the Flex 4 framework and runs on Flash Player 10.

I interviewed John Barton, Senior Solutions Architect at Schematic and asked him about the wall’s features, how it was built and where they are taking this next.

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could get something like this at MAX?

2 Comments

  1. Jochen Szostek
    June 26, 2009

    Awesome stuff they have created in such short notice. (as Flex 4, even the alpha, is a very recent technology)

    Thanks for the video!

  2. John
    August 18, 2010

    Interesting work, but one correction: the comment was made that this different than Surface because it’s single touch, and mult-user, whereas Surface is multi-touch but single user… that’s not right – Surface is designed to be massively multi-touch to support multiple users simultaneously interacting with both hands in collaborative social experiences. 5 people using all 10 fingers each (e.g,. 50 simultaneous touches) is no problem on Surface.

    The constraint on Surface is more likely to be the number of people you can physically fit around the table vs. the technology itself.

    In constrast, I’m guessing from the video this wall uses infrared lasers in the bezel of the screen to create an invisible grid coordinate system. In this kind of screen, the screen itself can be much larger a Surface table, and therefore allow more people to simultaneously walk up the screen. But the screen might not recognize touches correctly if there is another person at the same place on the x-axis or same place on the y-axis that is also touching the wall, no?

    For example, if you are breaking the plane of the infrared grid at coordinates (3,4), and I then try to break the plane at coordinates (3,6) will the screen properly detect my touch at X=3?

    All that said, this looks like a fun project. How long did it take to build?

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Brandon Johnson - Admiring: "Video: Schematic shows multi-touch wall. Runs on Flash. Built with Flex." ( http://bit.ly/a64Fx )
  2. creately.com - RT @charanjit: Schematic's very cool Flash interactive wall - http://bit.ly/m15eY
  3. Ryan Hall - Cool multi touch wall built in Adobe Flex http://bit.ly/oN0Hs
  4. Nice Agency - Really cool. We've been running a similar proof of concept RT @ryanghall: Cool multi touch wall built in Adobe Flex ...
  5. Dan Noe - This blows my mind: Schematic shows multi-touch wall. Runs on Flash. Built with Flex. - http://tinyurl.com/l2979m
  6. Adrianna Bustamante - my partners are always pushing the envelope and never cease to amaze me. Check out this Flash & Flex ...
  7. Matt Wilbanks - RT @bustamantea: my partners are always pushing the envelope and never cease to amaze me. Flash & Flex innovation http://bit.ly/9jPRq
  8. Warren Harrison - Giant touch-screen, interactive goodness from Schematic: http://bit.ly/3fxAka