INTERACTIVE SURFACES

Today we are surrounded by technologies where interaction is a key element: tablets and displays, smart washing machines and refrigerators, interactive classrooms and books with augmented reality.

Interaction allows a person to get involved into a new virtual space whether it's a simulation, a game or an educational application. Modern technologies allow us to interact with almost any object and any surface.

Our project portfolio has a very effective solution. Every year it becomes more popular due to its apparent simplicity, amazing colorfulness and a high degree of efficiency at exhibitions and in demo halls.

These are INTERACTIVE SURFACES.

 

Such projectors as Epson EB-1460 Ui and the new generation of laser Epson EB-1485 Fi are capable of creating an interactive environment in almost any space and on any flat surface. They are equipped with fingerprint recognition, gestures and simultaneous multi-touch. Moreover they provide high level of brightness at 4400 lumens, and their ultra-short focus lens allows to get an image up to 2500 mm in diagonal on the same wall where the projector is mounted. This simplifies the installation and virtually eliminates shadowing that may fall from the observer.

Having the big potential of this system in mind, our experts developed a special program for “stitching” and mutual calibration of several interactive projectors. Technically this significantly increased the area of ​​the interactive multi-touch surface and at the same time expanded the amount of interactive content to be demonstrated on these surfaces.

The main object of the installation is a printed banner, which is mounted on a vertical wall. It usually contours those objects that, when touched, will “come alive”. This can be observed as a kind of augmented reality, where the banner serves as a marker on which animated 2D and 3D graphics are superimposed with stunning accuracy.

 

Usually the image on the banner is monochrome, or black and white. This is done not for reasons of economy printing, but to ensure maximum contrast of colored objects coming "alive" on a snow-white banner. However, it should be noted that there have been cases when the customer asked to make the banner colored so that it goes in perfect alignment with the design of the stand. 

Of course, the development of such intercative content has its own tips and tricks in terms of design and settings: it is important to ensure that interactive zones in the projection do not intersect with each other, that the user feels comfortable when tapping the object: not too small, not too high above or too low on the vertical surface.

It is also important to navigate a user along the whole surface of the banner: provide “hints” and props for the objects that are interactive, think about convenient movement between the key objects and additional features. For example, we can program a change of languages ​​for infographics or counters for conducting a “poll” in real time. We can use 2D and 3D animations, static photos and dynamic video clips, graphs and charts, while maintaining a multi-user mode.

Our AR/VR software toolkit – EV Toolbox – comes to the fore for the big part of content design and programming: visuals, animations, scripts and additional functionality such as polls are created in EV Toolbox. That significantly reduces the time for developing content by ~30%.