skip to main content
research-article

LightTracker: An Open-Source Multitouch Toolkit

Published: 01 December 2010 Publication History

Abstract

In this article we present LightTracker -- an open-source toolkit for vision-based multi-touch setups. Using this toolkit, we can dynamically create and manipulate the image processing pipeline at runtime. After presenting various new requirements derived from hardware configurations as well as literature review, features and shortcomings of available tracking solutions are discussed and compared to our proposed toolkit. This is followed by a detailed description of the toolkit’s functionality, including the filter chain and the improved calibration module. We also present implementation details such as the plug-in system and the multithreaded architecture. To illustrate the advantages of the toolkit, an interactive gaming couch table based on LightTracker is introduced.

References

[1]
Bederson, B. B., Grosjean, J., and Meyer, J. 2004. Toolkit design for interactive structured graphics. IEEE Trans. Softw. Eng. 30, 8, 535--546.
[2]
Bakker, S., Vorstenbosch, D., van den Hoven, E., Hollemans, G., and Bergman, T. 2007. Weathergods: Tangible interaction in a digital tabletop game. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI’07). ACM, New York, 151--152.
[3]
Barakonyi, I., Weilguny, M., Psik, T., and Schmalstieg, D. 2005. MonkeyBridge: Autonomous agents in augmented reality games. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE’05). vol. 265. ACM, New York, 172--175.
[4]
BBTouch. http://benbritten.com/software/bbtouch-quick-start/.
[5]
Community Core Vision (CCV). 2010. http://ccv.nuigroup.com/.
[6]
Dietz, P. and Leigh, D. 2001. DiamondTouch: A multi-user touch technology. In Proceedings of the 14th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST’01). ACM, New York, 219--226.
[7]
Echtler, F. and Klinker, G. 2008. A multi-touch software architecture. In Proceedings of the 5th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction: Building Bridges (NordiCHI’08). vol. 358. ACM, New York, 463--466.
[8]
Esenther, A. and Wittenburg, K. 2005. Multi-user multi-touch games on DiamondTouch with the DTFlash toolkit. In Intelligent Technologies for Interactive Entertainment. Springer, Berlin, 315--319.
[9]
Geller, T. 2006. Interactive tabletop exhibits in museums and galleries. IEEE Comput. Graph. Appl. 26, 5, 6--11.
[10]
General Public License. 2010. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html.
[11]
Han, J. Y. 2005. Low-cost multi-touch sensing through frustrated total internal reflection. In Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST’05). ACM, New York, 115--118.
[12]
Hansen, T. E., Hourcade, J. P., Virbel, M., Patali, S., and Serra, T. 2009. PyMT: A post-WIMP multi-touch user interface toolkit. In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS’09). ACM, New York, 17--24.
[13]
Kaltenbrunner, M. 2009. reacTIVision and TUIO: A tangible tabletop toolkit. In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (ITS’09). ACM, New York, 9--16.
[14]
Kaltenbrunner, M. and Bencina, R. 2007. reacTIVision: A computer-vision framework for table-based tangible interaction. In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction (TEI’07). ACM, New York, 69--74.
[15]
König, W. A., Rädle, R., and Reiterer, H. 2009. Squidy: A zoomable design environment for natural user interfaces. In Proceedings of the 27th International Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’09). ACM, New York, 4561--4566.
[16]
Leitner, J., Köffel, C., and Haller, M. 2009. Bridging the gap between real and virtual objects for tabletop games. Int. J. Virtual Reality 7, 4, 33--40.
[17]
Leitner, J., Haller, M., Yun, K., Woo, W., Sugimoto, M., and Inami, M. 2008. IncreTable, A mixed reality tabletop game experience. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology (ACE’08). vol. 352. ACM, New York, 9--16.
[18]
Magerkurth, C., Memisoglu, M., Engelke, T., and Streitz, N. 2004. Towards the next generation of tabletop gaming experiences. In Proceedings of Graphics Interface 2004. ACM, New York, 73--80.
[19]
Matsushita, N. and Rekimoto, J. 1997. HoloWall: Designing a finger, hand, body, and object sensitive wall. In Proceedings of the 10th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST’97). ACM, New York, 209--210.
[20]
Microsoft Surface. 2010. http://www.microsoft.com/surface.
[21]
Movid. 2010. http://movid.org/.
[22]
Multi-touch. 2010. Multi-touch for Java. http://www.mt4j.org/mediawiki/index.php/Main_Page.
[23]
OpenCV. 2010. http://sourceforge.net/projects/opencvlibrary/.
[24]
Peltonen, P. et al. 2008. It’s mine, don’t touch! Interactions at a large multi-touch display in a city centre. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference. ACM, New York, 1285--1294.
[25]
Qt. 2010. Cross-platform application and UI framework. http://qt.nokia.com/.
[26]
Shen, C., Vernier, F. D., Forlines, C., and Ringel, M. 2004. DiamondSpin: An extensible toolkit for around-the-table interaction. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI’04). ACM, New York, 167--174.
[27]
Touchè. 2010. http://gkaindl.com/software/touché.
[28]
Touchlib. 2010. http://www.nuigroup.com/touchlib/.

Cited By

View all
  • (2014)BullsEyeProceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces10.1145/2669485.2669503(269-278)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2014
  • (2013)GlueTKProceedings of the 2013 international conference on Intelligent user interfaces10.1145/2449396.2449440(329-338)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2013
  • (2011)Unifying events from multiple devices for interpreting user intentions through natural gesturesProceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part I10.5555/2042053.2042112(576-590)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2011
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image Computers in Entertainment
Computers in Entertainment   Volume 8, Issue 3
Theoretical and Practical Computer Applications in Entertainment
December 2010
112 pages
EISSN:1544-3574
DOI:10.1145/1902593
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2010
Published in CIE Volume 8, Issue 3

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. Multitouch
  2. computer vision
  3. interactive surfaces
  4. tabletop
  5. toolkit

Qualifiers

  • Research-article
  • Research
  • Refereed

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)2
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1
Reflects downloads up to 13 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2014)BullsEyeProceedings of the Ninth ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces10.1145/2669485.2669503(269-278)Online publication date: 16-Nov-2014
  • (2013)GlueTKProceedings of the 2013 international conference on Intelligent user interfaces10.1145/2449396.2449440(329-338)Online publication date: 19-Mar-2013
  • (2011)Unifying events from multiple devices for interpreting user intentions through natural gesturesProceedings of the 13th IFIP TC 13 international conference on Human-computer interaction - Volume Part I10.5555/2042053.2042112(576-590)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2011
  • (2011)Designing user-, hand-, and handpart-aware tabletop interactions with the TouchID toolkitProceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces10.1145/2076354.2076358(21-30)Online publication date: 13-Nov-2011

View Options

Login options

Full Access

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

HTML Format

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media