Senior Project - TouchUp

The goal of the LifeLong Learning and Design (L3D) Labs is to establish the scientific foundations for the construction of intelligent systems that serve as amplifiers of human capabilities. This includes systems that serve to expand human memory, augment human reasoning or facilitate human communication. This is achieved by allowing basic, qualitative theories of human cognition to guide the design of innovative systems.

The goal of the project was to produce an application to investigate the capabilities of Mitsubishi Electronics Research Lab's (MERL) prototype DiamondTouch table. This table allows up to four users to interact simultaneously and independently on a touch screen surface. The project is a multi-user, touch-based drawing program exploiting DiamondTouch functionality in the form of a collaborative artistic environment in which multiple users can work together to manipulate a single digital image. Because all users have their own personal settings, they are able to draw with different tools at the same time, and undo or redo their actions without interfering with each other's work.

Beneath its simplicity, however, lies a surprising degree of complexity. The quality of the design and implementation is evident from subtle capabilities (such as the ability to dynamically add and remove users) to core design aspects (such as undoing or redoing user-specific actions). Additional features, such as the ability to "flick" GUI components about the screen provide for an enjoyable user experience. The system was implemented in C#.