A Study on the 3D Touchscreen Production Method for Technology Convergence Media Art

Abstract

This study began with the author's interest since the introduction of touchscreens using TOF cameras published in Siggraph 2005. Since the release of the “Khronos Projector” project in 2005, research and use of touchscreens using TOF cameras has continued to increase. However, hardware development such as thinning the screen and using infrared cameras instead of TOF cameras has been the mainstream of camera-based touchscreen research, and no further research has been conducted until recently to show the scalability of the production until recently. In this background, the purpose of this study is to enable new production by using a depth camera enabled touchscreen (hereinafter FTIR screen). Therefore, this paper paid attention to the 3D touch announced by “Apple” company and implemented research that applies this technology to FTIR screens. The 3D touch conducted in this study was implemented using the characteristics that the depth of touch and it’s surrounding area changes depending on the force exerted on the cloth screen. The contents and results of the study to utilize these features are as follows. Firstly, the author conducted research on depth cameras, fabrics and beam projectors. Secondly, he developed a software that tracks the position of touch along with the depth change of it’s surrounding area using a depth camera. Thirdly, a 3D touch function was tested using the software developed above with screens made by ourselves. Fourthly, it was used to produce technology-conve rged artworks using screens developed in this study. It was confirmed that the screen developed in this study worked stably as it was used for various art works in a total of three exhibitions. Based on thes e research results, the author will be studying on t he use of FTIR screens and force exerted; therefore, foreseeing more diverse artworks using such metho ds in the future.