Empirical Evaluation for Finger Input Properties In Multi-touch Interaction

My comments on other blogs:


Authors:

Feng Wang - Kochi University of Technology
Xiangshi Ren - Kochi University of Technology

Summary:

This paper is about different strategies to read in multi-touch input from a finger.  The paper begins by explaining their device that is used for input.  This device is commonly known as a FTIR table, or a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection table.  Traditional input has been read in as a centroid coordinate, meaning, the entire blob of the finger is read, and center point is determined, and that center point is where the "click" occurred.

This research attempts to take into account many factors such as a orientation, contact area, length, width, and the coordinate to provide a more accurate touch interface.  The paper also hopes to not only provide a more accurate touch interface, but to also define a desired "minimum pixel length" for buttons.  This information is crucial to designers.  In order to create an easy to use interface, all of these considerations must be taken into account.

Personal Reflection:

I wanted to read this paper because I find FTIR touch interfaces interesting because it provides multi-touch technology while the device itself can easily be created.  I hope to be making my own FTIR device and this research greatly influences my idea of what such a multi-touch device could do.