Virtually any surface can now be transformed into a touch interface for as little as $149 (€112) after a system that InAVate reported on in May 2012 has been brought to market. Ubi Interactive, a university spin-out company, is marketing a software solution that utilises a projector and a Microsoft Kinect unit to create touchscreens.
The Seattle based technology startup started life at the Technical University of Munich and the Center for Digital Technology and Management in Munich, Germany and was selected by Microsoft as one of 11 promising companies to be part of its first accelerator program.
The gesture-control solution transforms surfaces into 3D multitouch-screens and consists of a Microsoft Kinect for Windows sensor and Ubi software.
The sensor can be placed facing a display created by front or rear projection. The user can interact with the display using simple gestures. Ubi analyses the images captured by the sensor to detect the position of the user’s hands or fingers in the 3D space in front of the display.
It can determine when the user is in contact with the display and pass this on as standard touch events to any touch optimised Windows 8 application.
An enterprise version of the technology supports up to 20 simulataneous touch points on a maximum display size of 100â€.