The DiamondTouch table is a
multi-touch, interactive
PC interface product from Circle Twelve Inc. It is a
human interface device
A human interface device or HID is a type of computer device usually used by humans that takes input from humans and gives output to humans.
The term "HID" most commonly refers to the USB-HID specification. The term was coined by Mike Van Fl ...
that has the capability of allowing multiple people to interact simultaneously while identifying which person is touching where. The technology was originally developed at
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories
Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) is a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric US Holdings, Inc., which, in its turn, is the principal subsidiary of Mitsubishi Electric in the United States. MERL is the North American arm of the Corpora ...
(MERL) in 2001
[
] and later licensed to Circle Twelve Inc in 2008. The DiamondTouch table is used to facilitate face-to-face collaboration, brainstorming, and decision-making, and users include construction management company
Parsons Brinckerhoff
WSP USA, formerly WSP, Parsons Brinckerhoff and Parsons Brinckerhoff, is a multinational engineering and design firm with approximately 14,000 employees. WSP stands for Williams Sale Partnership. The firm operates in the fields of strategic con ...
, the
Methodist Hospital, and the
US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
Overview
The DiamondTouch table is a front-projected interactive display that allows up to four users to sit face to face and work together on the same screen. The DiamondTouch hardware enables a class of software known as "single-display
groupware"
[
] where collaborative work is supported by computer interfaces that allow participants to be physically close. While product literature
[DiamondTouch Product Flier](_blank)
mentions consumer uses such as gaming, customers of the DiamondTouch are using it for business and office applications.
[Kalinski, A.]
Touched by a Multi-Touch World
, GeoSpatial Solutions, 10 March 2009.
The principal feature that distinguishes the DiamondTouch table from other multi-touch interfaces, such as the
Apple iPhone,
HP TouchSmart
HP TouchSmart is a series of tablet PC laptops and touchscreen all-in-one desktop computers designed by HP. It features various Intel or AMD processors and runs Windows Vista or Windows 7 as standard.
HP TouchSmart All-in-One
Consumer version ...
,
Microsoft Surface
Microsoft Surface is a series of touchscreen-based personal computers, tablets and interactive whiteboards designed and developed by Microsoft, running the Microsoft Windows operating system, apart from the Surface Duo, which runs on Andro ...
or do-it-yourself systems inspired by the work of
Jeff Han
Jefferson Y. "Jeff" Han (born 1975) is a computer scientist who worked for New York University's (NYU) Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences until 2006. He is one of the main developers of " multi-touch sensing", which, unlike older touch ...
, is that the DiamondTouch table can identify who is touching where. DiamondTouch achieves this feature through capacitive coupling between a transmitter array located in the touch surface and separate receivers located in the chair of each user.
The physical set-up of the system consists of the DiamondTouch device connected to a PC via
USB
Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
cable, and a
video projector
A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image on a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp (a special mercury arc lamp), X ...
suspended above the table and aimed down onto the touch surface. Cables connect chairs or receivers to the DiamondTouch unit. The current products have four receivers, thereby supporting one to four users.
A software development kit (SDK) allows developers to build custom software applications using standard programming languages including
C,
C++
C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...
,
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
,
ActiveX
ActiveX is a deprecated software framework created by Microsoft that adapts its earlier Component Object Model (COM) and Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) technologies for content downloaded from a network, particularly from the World Wide We ...
(for
C#,
DHTML
Dynamic HTML, or DHTML, is a term which was used by some browser vendors to describe the combination of HTML, style sheets and client-side scripts (JavaScript, VBScript, or any other supported scripts) that enabled the creation of interactive ...
,
VB.NET
Visual Basic, originally called Visual Basic .NET (VB.NET), is a multi-paradigm, object-oriented programming language, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Microsoft launched VB.NET in 2002 as the successor to its original Visua ...
) and
Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia software platform used for production of animations, rich web applications, desktop applications, mobile apps, mobile games, and embedded web browser video players. Fla ...
. A mouse emulator enables the operation of common software applications using multi-touch gestures for mouse functions (left button, middle button, right button and scroll wheel). A multi-user annotation software tool allows users to make mark-ups, selecting pen types from a pallet.
In September 2008, Circle Twelve introduced a software extension for the
geospatial information systems (GIS) software
ArcView
ArcView is the entry level licensing level of ArcGIS Desktop, a geographic information system software product produced by Esri. It is intended by Esri to be the logical migration path from ArcView 3.x.
ArcView is now referred to as ArcGIS fo ...
from
ESRI
Esri (; Environmental Systems Research Institute) is an American multinational geographic information system (GIS) software company. It is best known for its ArcGIS products. With a 43% market share, Esri is the world's leading supplier of GIS ...
. The software extension allows multi-user and multi-touch interactions in ArcView when used in conjunction with the DiamondTouch table.
History
DiamondTouch technology was developed by Paul Dietz and Darren Leigh at MERL, and presented at the
ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology
The ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) is an annual conference for technical innovations in human–computer interfaces. UIST is sponsored by ACM SIGCHI and ACM SIGGRAPH. By impact factor, it is one of impactful confere ...
(UIST) in 2001.
The hardware complimented other
Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research, including the Personal Digital Historian
[
] developed by Chia Shen and others at MERL, and led to developments in tabletop computing,
[
] shared display groupware, and touch-based interaction. While the traditional computer interfaces (consisting of a mouse, keyboard and monitor) were originally designed to support individuals, the focus was to create a new type of computer interface to support face-to-face collaboration among small groups of people.
In 2003, MERL started a university loan program in which DiamondTouch tables were provided to universities for research purposes, and tabletop computing research built around DiamondTouch began at research groups including
Stanford University,
Carnegie Mellon University,
Georgia Institute of Technology, and
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project b ...
, leading to research papers presented at academic conferences including UIST, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI), ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), and International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (HCII). Research in the field led to the formation of the annual academic conference beginning in 2006 called Tabletop (initially, the IEEE International Workshop on Horizontal Interactive Human-Computer Systems or TableTop 2006, and most recently the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces or Tabletop 2010).
DiamondTouch first appeared publicly at a cocktail reception at the 2004
Technology Entertainment Design (TED) conference and soon after that at the first
NextFest sponsored by
Wired Magazine
''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered in San Fr ...
. In 2006, MERL began selling the DiamondTouch table product commercially. In 2008, MERL licensed the DiamondTouch technology to Circle Twelve Inc, a company founded by MERL’s former VP of Business Development, Adam Bogue.
Notable Research
* Researchers from Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK) developed a Collaborative Puzzle Game with the aim of fostering social interaction skills among children with
Autism Spectrum Disorders
The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
. The work was presented at the 8th Annual International Meeting for Autism Research (IMFAR).
[
]
* A system for conflict negotiation and resolution between
Palestinian and Israeli youths was designed in which face-to-face interaction was mediated by the DiamondTouch table. Research took place at
University of Haifa
The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming ...
and was presented at CHI 2008.
* A Shared Speech Interface was designed by researchers at
UCSD
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
to facilitate conversations between deaf and non-signing, hearing people. The work was presented at CSCW 2008.
* The use of multi-user tabletop interfaces in conjunction with vertical displays in operations centers like the
New York City Police Department
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
’s
Real Time Crime Center
A real-time crime center (RTCC) is a centralized technology utilized by law enforcement and emergency first responders. During early adoption, the primary purpose of RTCC was to give field officers and detectives instant information to help identi ...
was explored by researchers at
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
and MERL.
* A study at
University of Sussex
, mottoeng = Be Still and Know
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £14.4 million (2020)
, budget = £319.6 million (2019–20)
, chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar
, vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil
, ...
focused on comparing multi-user interaction around vertical displays versus horizontal displays and found that horizontal displays were better for collaboration, concluding that users of horizontal displays "switched more between roles, explored more ideas and had a greater awareness of what each other was doing," while users of vertical displays "found it more difficult to collaborate."
* Recognizing that image orientation poses an interface issue with multi-user horizontal displays, researchers from MERL developed DiamondSpin, a java-based applications development framework."
[
] The DiamondSpin toolkit is available for download. http://diamondspin.free.fr/
* Researchers from
University of South Australia
The University of South Australia (UniSA) is a public research university in the Australian state of South Australia. It is a founding member of the Australian Technology Network of universities, and is the largest university in South Australi ...
developed a system for mapping the multi-user capabilities of DiamondTouch into the multi-window device support of the
X Window System
The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems.
X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...
.
[
] The system, named
Multi-Pointer X (MPX), works with operating systems such as
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
that support multiple pointing devices.
* Multi-modal interfaces that combine speech recognition and direct touch interactions were explored by researchers at
University of Calgary
The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...
and MERL,
[
] leading to applications that included an adaptation of
WarCraft III
''Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos'' is a high fantasy real-time strategy computer video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment released in July 2002. It is the second sequel to ''Warcraft: Orcs & Humans'', after ''Warcraft II: Tides ...
on the DiamondTouch table.
* Issues of social protocol in multi-user tabletop computer systems were explored by researchers from
Stanford, MERL and
University of Paris
, image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Coat of Arms
, latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis
, motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin)
, mottoeng = Here and a ...
, proposing paradigms for user interface design in shared display groupware.
[
]
* Researchers from MERL and
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...
developed user interface design principles for
multi-touch screens, including the use of various hand postures in one and two-handed touch interaction concepts.
[
]
* Students from the
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...
developed a
multi-touch design application for
Lego models.
[
]
See also
*
Microsoft PixelSense
*
Perceptive Pixel
References
External links
YouTube video demonstration of DiamondTouch MouseOriginal DiamondTouch technical paper MERL 2001
Original DiamondTouch video presented at UIST 2001MERL website for Tabletop Computing
{{DEFAULTSORT:Diamondtouch
Mitsubishi Electric products, services and standards
Surface computing