Advancing Large Interactive Surfaces for Use in the Real World

Interactive surfaces are only just beginning to break into the market,and they still do not offer the advanced functionality demonstrated with manylab prototypes. The path from a prototype system to a finished product for usein real-world scenarios is a long one, and many obstacles must be overcome.The design of an interactive multitouch table had to address issues like opticalrecognition, hardware design, and ergonomics. This paper describes in detail theconstruction of a large, robust multi-touch table called mrT. It will show how tosolve major problems of the diffuse illumination technique and other challengesof constructing a large-screen, high-resolution, self-contained interactive multitouchsurface that not only serves as a development system but can be deployedin the real-world. Additionally, to further motivate some of the design decisions,especially why the diffuse illumination technology was chosen, this paper willdiscuss related on-going research projects on the application side