Multi-Touch Interface on the cheap(really cheap)

Step 2 The Software and Setup

For this step we will be setting up the software to read and interpret the image. You can download this software from there website www.roborealm.com. iI have not perfected the software for using fingers,kinda hard to seperate them,but..., I do have a pen like thing that I built from random things lying around my room that powers up an LED. The file Pen.robo is for using the LED pen thingy,u can use anything that powers up an LED and for added precision you can put an IR filter over the camera that is made from either a floppy disk drive or a completely dark spot from a negative on camera filem strip, And the file Touch.robo is for using hands but is not perfected.

Comments

[Jahfer]

How exactly do you download the files? all i do is click them and it takes me to a blank site thingy and it shows "http://www.instructables.com/files/orig/F2M/35LI/F5HVTEJN/F2M35LIF5HVTEJN.tmp"

[infraredman21]

hey whats up? hear you can try my link to the download its downloading for me right now

http://www.roborealm.com/d.php?e=[e-mail]&k=1934276738

[infraredman21]

please dont use my e-mail for anything bad think you and this link works

[Jahfer]

also teh text in it is 1.7.21.1 205 0 320 0 TRUE 4 100 1 2 Current Source TRUE -90 0.00 -60 2 TRUE 2 TRUE -1 FALSE TRUE 9 TRUE -1 gui newX 1400 1050 newY...what do i do with this?

[mobilegamer999]

Just save that file as a .txt and then after it is done downlaoding hange the extension to .robo

[Trevmister8]

The touch one won't register my hand at all. Instead the thing locks onto the backround AND spazzes out I tried putting the thing so it is facing away from the light and my hands would be reflecting the light (night) and it still spazzes out, locked onto a black backround. What is the cause of this? BTW no laser pointer or LED or anything that I could rly use >_>

[seen53]

The camera with IR filter seems to work better because it only picks up light that is escaping from the IR lens.

[DBeta]

That's pretty cool. I was playing around with it and found that my 15FPS webcam just isn't fast enough to be translated over a whole screen. So my idea would be to change it to work like the pad on a laptop. Would that be possible? As it stands I have a 1280x1024 screen, and moving the cursor at a decent rate across the screen takes just a few frames, meaning very rough mouse movement. I actually sped it up a lot by disabling "low light boost" in the advanced tab of the video capture area, but I'd still like more tracking like systems.

[ferrariman610]

I need help. I can get the program to work, and I can move the mouse, but I can't get it to click anything! Other than that, this is one of the best multi-touch projects I've seen (for the cost: FREE!). Keep up the good work.

[mobilegamer999]

Yea,i dont have the clicking part working, once i can get around to finding some tracing paper or actually buying it (im broke)>_<. But once i can get around to getting some i will update the instructable and the files.

[Alexizupinhea]

I need some help. When I open to pen.robo, it says that it cannot find the registered scriptsite.dll file. It says to place it in either the system 32 folder or the same folder as the application. I click ok, and then it goes to the program, and everything looks right, but the mouse won't go to where the red dot shows. Also, I have that file in the same folder as the application, and I even copied that file to my system32 folder, and it still won't work. Got any ideas? PS: Same problem hapens when trying to use touch.robo

[mobilegamer999]

well make shure that when its open the button twords the middle of the top of the screen that says run is pressed down.

[Alexizupinhea]

By the way, sorry for not telling you how cool this stuff is. I've been wanting to do this ever since I saw this YouTube video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yzNh31q61gc . I've been waiting for someone to make a program like yours (since I don't know much about programming). Thanks for all your help.

[Alexizupinhea]

Yes, the run button is/was always pressed down. Eveything looks like it would work, but it just doesn't move the mouse. I REALLY want to get this to work. Also, I just figured out while writing this comment, that I can click on a list of things and read your configurations for the program: like I can click on "Vertical Flip", and "Crop 0,0 -320,200", etc. I can read all of those configurations except for the VBScript Program. When I open that, it says that it can't find that ScriptSite.dll file. I can see what it contains, but I guess it won't work because of the ScriptSite.dll file. It says:

f1x=getVAriable("COG_X")
f1y=getVariable("COG_Y")
sizeX=(getVAriable("CROP_X_END")-5)-(getVAriable("CROP_X_START")+5)
sizeY=(getVAriable("CROP_Y_END")-5)-(getVAriable("CROP_Y_START")+5)
tx1=f1x/sizeX
ty1=(sizeY-f1y)/sizeY
tx1=getVariable("SCREEN_WIDTH")*tx1
ty1=getVariable("SCREEN_HEIGHT")*ty1
setVariable "newX",tx1
setVariable "newY",ty1

Any ideas?

[mobilegamer999]

Coulda been a write error from the un-zipper or something like that so heres the file i have.

[Alexizupinhea]

Okay, sorry, but I forgot that I was using windows vista. I have both windows xp and windows vista on my laptop. My Xp part is all corrupt with viruses and stuff, so I usually start my computer with Vista. Anyway, it works with Xp, and I found out HOW to get it to work with Vista, but I don't know how to do it. What I mean is, it says: If that still does not work then type regsvr32 dll_name (usually ScriptSite.dll) in the command console after changing to the RoboRealm folder. The dll_name above is the name of the missing DLL (e.g. ScriptSite.dll) This is a known issue with Microsoft Vista. What is the command console? PS: Thanks for all your help, you respond fast and well. Thanks for sending me that file. Sorry I am having so many problems.

[mobilegamer999]

By command console they mean the command promt which can be run by going to start menu and click run,and in the box you type C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe and that will bring up a black box with some text in it,if you are farmilliar with this you should be able to navigate to the directory,but if you are un-farmilliar to this you need to type "cd (directory name)" ex: if the folder was located at C:\RoboRealm you would type "cd C:\RoboRealm" without the quotes. And then you would type regsvr32 ScriptSite.dll and that should do it any more questions fell free to ask

[Alexizupinhea]

Thanks, I use command prompt alot, but I never heard of it as command console. I didn't get it to work at first, but then I remembered that I had to run command prompt as adminstrator (right click it and hit "Run as Administrator"). Vista can get annoying with security stuff. Anyway, I got it to work finally. Also, thanks for all the replies, I really appreciate it. PS: This program is SICK!

[mobilegamer999]

Thaks for the intrest in the project.

[MaxiTURK]

i tried to download with firefox and ie but i couldnt

[mobilegamer999]

When you get promted to save the file by right clicking the link for downloading the file and clicking "Save as..." you need to save it as pen.robo or anything with the extension .robo

[MaxiTURK]

files arent downloadable when i pressed them give an error "1.7.21.1 205 0 320 0 TRUE 4 100 1 2 Current Source TRUE -90 0.00 -60 2 TRUE 2 TRUE -1 FALSE TRUE 9 TRUE -1 gui newX 1400 1050 newY" that writes in it