While touch sensing is common on small, flat surfaces such as smartphone or tablet screens, researchers have now developed a technology to turn surfaces of a wide variety of shapes and sizes into touchpads using tools as simple as a can of spray paint.
\nThe technology, called Electrick, can turn walls, furniture, steering wheels and even toys into touch sensors, the researchers said.<\/p>\n
The \u201ctrick\u201d is to apply electrically conductive coatings or materials to objects or surfaces, or to craft objects using conductive materials.<\/p>\n
By attaching a series of electrodes to the conductive materials, researchers showed they could use a well-known technique called electric field tomography to sense the position of a finger touch.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time, we\u2019ve been able to take a can of spray paint and put a touch screen on almost anything,\u201d said Chris Harrison, Assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, US.<\/p>\n
The group is scheduled to present Electrick at CHI 2017, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, this week in Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n
Until now, large touch surfaces have been expensive and irregularly shaped, or flexible touch surfaces have been largely available only in research labs.<\/p>\n
Some methods have relied on computer vision, which can be disrupted if a camera\u2019s view of a surface is blocked. The presence of cameras also raises privacy concerns.<\/p>\n