The new upright multi-touch screen Koala Hyaku is soon finished. This is another prototype in the Koala Line, but much larger than the previous with a diagonal screen measurement of 100". This time we are using lasers for IR-illumination and so far we are using reacTIVision for blob tracking.

On May 15th we will have a release party for the new Koala and a customized Second Life client with multi-touch support and cel-shading. Since the screen is huge and is currently blocking the whiteboard in our conference room we created a simple whiteboard app for our dear coworkers.


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I personally believe that the conference table is too big...

White Lights is a low-energy interactive light solution for any stylish home or office environment.

The concept is rather straight forward; intelligent, green light at a reasonable price.

The product is a wall or ceiling mounted 2D LED-array that can display different animations and light intensity depending on external conditions such as light, movement, proximity, and sound. The units can be placed side by side or cover whole walls. That way it is possible to have a light source that is “following” the user and only provide light in the part of the room where it is needed.

The grid can contain of 8x8, 12x12, and 16x16 (64, 144, 256) LED’s depending on the amount of multiplexors per unit. The application is powered by the Arduino, but it might be possible to reduce the hardware to the mere ATMega and a crystal at lower frequency to decrease power consumption and cost further.

Currently we are working on the first prototype and also a related research project that will include technology from this concept.

Since 2005 we have been working on several Multi-Touch screens and tables using blob tracking. During testing of an early prototype that didn’t perform very well we gave the project the name Koala, since the user had to move very slowly for the system to keep track of the blobs.

We are currently working on our fifth prototype called Snö Box, a dual projector Multi-Touch table that measures 160 x 60 cm. At the moment we are developing a book search application that uses Amazon.com to gather product information and related items. We call it BookSearch :)


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The system primarily uses Touchlib for blob tracking and so far we have been using ActionScript for our apps. We have done an endless number of experiments with different illumination methods, screen materials, and cameras. The latest versions of the Koala have been very responsive and stable. Recently we invited our Portuguese friend Miguel to help us build apps with higher performance. He will join our team on Friday and we’re really looking forward to that.

The Mixed Reality Group at Zenitum are developing Augmented Reality Technology, and as a little bonus we decided combine the technologies for an extra vivid user experience.


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Here is an example of the Koala displaying markers for augmented reality during a demonstration in COEX. The elephant is displayed on the handset as if it was standing on top of the Koala. The model is re-rendered in real time so that it follows the movement of the camera. We think it’s pretty cool :)

More info on our current projects will be posted soon...