Abstract:

A technique for creating touch sensitive surfaces is proposed which allows multiple, simultaneous users to interact in an intuitive fashion. Touch location information is determined independently for each user, allowing each touch on the common surface to be associated with a particular user. The surface gnerates location dependent electric fields, which are capacitively coupled through the users to receivers installed in the work environment. We describe the design of these sytems and their applications. Finally, we conclude with a description of the results we have obtained with a first generation prototype.