I just came upon a nice article by Ola Nordal about the Max ToolBox. For those who don’t know, the Max ToolBox is a small utility I wrote a few years back to facilitate patching in the Max/MSP environment, I’m glad to see people enjoy it !
Max ToolBox
We recently made small upgrades to the first prototype.
Projector
The pico projector (Dell M109s) has been replaced with a much more powerful short throw (toshiba TDP-EW25). This allows us to have a bigger and clearer picture in various lighting conditions.


Structure
We also added a wheeled base to support and stabilise all of the components.


What’s next
As our first prototype (T/Iv1) is now solid, we will focus on the development of multitouch software projects (synthlab mt and bloblab). We are also eager to use the knowledge we acquired over the last year to develop custom hardware and software setups for various projects.

We will present the last version of our interactive table (TI/v1) at the next ShareMTL. It will be an occasion to share our methods for the development of the hardware and the software. We will give an explanation of the technologies of the multitouch table, demonstrate a preliminary version of SynthLabMt and other ongoing projects.
T/I at ShareMTL – 25th October 2009
PARC vidéographe
4550 rue Garnier, 2nd floor
Montreal (Québec) Canada
Lieu de rencontre:
PARC Vidéographe
4550 rue Garnier, 2e étage
Montréal (Québec) Canad

We will be presenting our multitouch table along with some experiments in PyMT, Processing and Max/MSP at Forum Ouvert du Code de la SAT, tomorrow August the 10th.
The Forum du Code is similar to a workshop, you can come experiment with the table and the other installations.
Begins at 7pm @ 1195 St-Laurent à Montréal.
The new iPhone OS version 3 just came out with much appreciated CalDAV support. While the main calendar is easy to setup, secondary calendars are a little harder to get to work.
For the main calendar, you put “www.google.com” in the address field and your usual Google login and password and that will add your main calendar.
For a secondary calendar, you need to go on your secondary calendar’s configuration page on the Google Calendar website. On this page you should find a Calendar ID that looks like this :
026t2ui8kd1c3oi3ndlg31oalk@group.calendar.google.com (Note, this is an example)
On the iPhone, in the address field, you need to input the following :
https://www.google.com/calendar/dav/026t2ui8kd1c3oi3ndlg31oalk@group.calendar.google.com/user
and your normal login and password. This should do the trick!
We will be demonstrating our multitouch table at the Warper party on Tuesday May 26th from 2pm to 6pm, here is more information on the event.

We will do a short presentation about PyMT at the next MontrealPython on April the 14th, hope to see your there !


After some considerations, we chose a simple and «eco» solution: to modify, with the invaluable help of François Bergeron (carpenter), an unused table to support the acrylic surface.

This installation is relatively simple. The surface, framed in an aluminum track with LED strips taped inside, is resting on the table support angles.
We added a wooden frame, both for look and comfort. The whole table can be easily taken apart and is portable (no quirky parts and weights about 20 lbs without the acrylic) which is good for our experimental use.

While we are working on the «material» aspect of the project, Nathanaël also started contributing on software. More to follow on this subject in the next posts !

(English subtiltles available by clicking the arrow at the bottom right.)
In order to capture light «blobs» emitted by touching the acrylic surface surounded with LED lights (see preceding post), we use Sony’s PS3Eye. For this setup to be effective, we had to change the original lens for a wider-angle one. We used this tutorial to open the camera.
- PS3Eye can be found in many retail stores (which we won’t promote) for about 40$CAN
- Lenses are avaible at Dealextreme for 15$US (shipping is free)
- Sunex’s mount is available online for 6$US : CMT-107
http://www.vimeo.com/2684016
Preliminary experimentations with an acrylic board and infrared LED strips. LEDs were bought at Environment Lights and the acrylic board comes from Acrifab. This sequence was shot with the PS3Eye webcam with the IR filter removed. The light is not visible to the naked eye.
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