The UK's Leading Multi Touch Researchers

A new video of the ICE in action

2011-11-30T14:28:50Z

Here's a new video of the ICE in action in a multitude of different scenarios. It's a bit of a "greatest hits" of videos from the past but there's some new stuff in there too..

Multi-Disciplinary Team Meetings in the ICE

2011-10-10T12:01:12Z

Here's a quick video demonstrating the ICE being used for a medical MDT (Multi-Disciplinary Team) meeting where both local and remote participants can interact with a patient's medical data and case history for diagnostic and treatment purposes.

The Team grows

2011-06-20T11:46:00Z

The full time Future Interactions team has grown this summer with the addition of two very talented developers, Aurélien Ammeloot and Richard Nesnass. They both bring enthusiasm and serious development chops to the team and have hit the ground running as the projects mount up!

Aurelien Ammeloot & Richard Nesnass join the team

The Digital Wall is installed

2011-04-11T13:06:12Z

The next part of our Future Living Future Life project is underway with the installation of our 8K resolution (4320x1920) 2.5m x 1m digital wall. Using Multitouch.fi's cornerstone SDK for full hand n-point DI multi-touch combined with rear projection blending it's remarkably responsive and feels like a huge a 110" iPad! We're in beta period whilst we finish the 1.0 release of the software which will be a multi-user multi-touch mapping, services and timetabling resource for students and visitors alike.

An example of some GIS software in the ICE

2010-10-14T13:35:15Z

This is a quick video to show how Law Enforcement specific GIS software could be utilised in a multi-touch enabled space like Edinburgh Napier University's ICE (Interactive Collaborative Environment).

The ICE gets a 4 page spread in E&T magazine

2010-07-21T10:37:53Z

The Institution of Engineering and Technology has taken a great interest in our work and invited us to write a short piece for their magazine. The short piece became a 4 page spread with pictures and video! Check out the link below to read the full article:

E&T article

ICE to host sicsa multitouch workshop on July 2nd

2010-05-18T10:28:47Z

The ICE will play host to a sicsa workshop on the interaction design and development of multitouch enabled environments and software. The workshop is part of the CREATE 2010 conference running from June 30th to July 2nd.

From CREATE website:

"Centering on the newly installed "Future Meeting Room" at Merchiston Campus, this afternoon workshop will address novel forms of expressive and gestural human-technology interactions. The workshop will be specifically focusing on the interaction design challenges of developing applications and services for multi-touch, multi-user collaboration, and will include theoretical and case-study discussions alongside some practical design activities.

The workshop is intended for research students, and SICSA PhD students will be given priority for places, however Create10 conference delegates are welcome to attend if there is sufficient capacity.

If you would like to attend this workshop please email a (maximum) 1 page statement outlining yourself and your affiliation, describing your research interests and activities, and telling us why you would like to attend the workshop.

Please send your statement to: Ingi Helgason by Friday June 4th."

The British Council have an article on the ICE

2010-05-11T17:45:19Z

The British Council's Cubed online magazine have an article featuring the ICE and an interview with Oli.

BBC and others cover the Future Meeting Room

2010-02-10T12:09:01Z

So, we were rather inundated with media interest on the launch of the FMR, from the BBC to the Sun, which was a pleasant but chaos inducing surprise! People have been in contact asking to see what the reactions were so I've added a Press section to the site. You can view the BBC coverage here (NB. this link sometimes doesn't work but you can watch the video directly here). Interestingly they seemed to miss the point that it's the whole project that has a budget of £150k whilst all the hardware in the room was far less, around 35% of that total, but c'est la vie...

The best thing that has come from all the coverage is the fact that a lot of very interesting people, organisations and companies have learnt what we're up to and got in touch to discuss our project, their projects and the possibilities for collaboration. If that applies to you, please get in touch as well.

The website launches!

2008-07-17T20:37:43Z

Welcome to FIN, the Future Interactions Network!

Below is a video of the project that's kicked off this network, the future meeting room built by Dr Oli Mival at Edinburgh Napier University.

The highlights include...

104" bespoke multi-touch table
The room’s centrepiece is the bespoke 104” true multi-touch rear projection boardroom table. The one piece 2.4 meter by 1.2 meter glass tabletop forms a fully interactive, orientation independent, multi-touch surface which allows for total room control as well as interactivity with all other screens. The table can recognise and interact with objects placed on it’s surface such as mobile phones, laptops or books using infra red fiducial markers.
4 x 42" dual touch HD LCD screens
Four 42” HD (1080p) dual point multi-touch LCD screens utilising diffuse IR overlays adorn two of the room’s walls. Each screen is driven by a dedicated computer running any one of 5 operating systems.
46" true multi-touch HD LCD cell
On the center wall is a 46” HD (1080p) true multi-touch LCD screen built by multitouch.oy, pioneers in computer vision multi-touch techniques. The screen is capable of detecting finger and hand orientation as well as distinguishing between different users.

digitally augmented walls
Ignoring the fact that people are used to pens, notebooks and whiteboards would be a mistake. Rather than simply removing these from the environment the ICE digitally augments their functionality. All notes are digitised and can be automatically displayed on any of the screens, shared with remote sources or simply emailed to the note taker. Any item on any of the screens can be digitally annotated using augmented whiteboard pens. In addition, three large wall spaces, approximately 2.5 meters by 1.2 meters serve as traditional whiteboards with a twist as anything written on them is digitised and can be stored and shared in the same way as the output of the digital notebooks.

Want to learn more? Read about the history of the room including it's design concept as well as more about the hardware and the software that makes it all run.