Multi touch terminology

The multi touch phenomena

 

I-Phones… the greatest selling smart phone. It’s probably been the greatest influence on touch screen user acceptance in history.

I can remember when I first started getting involved with touch screens some 15 years ago working hard to convince software developers and potential customers to utilise a touch screen in their applications.... more often than not the objection was that potential users just wouldn’t ‘’ get it”.

The few that did integrate touch screens often found it necessary to add a vinyl graphic saying “touch here !’’

Wow...have times changed....

An LCD monitor in a public place will entice people to prod and poke it, whether it has a touch screen or not!

Touch technology is growing to be an expectation, an expectation from all age groups and backgrounds, from primary school children through to the” blue rinse” brigade, not just gadget geeks.

From the humble beginnings of resistive technology, Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW) and surface capacitive technologies the expectation has now moved on one stage further to multi touch.

“Pinching” and “flicking” are terms widely used to describe multi touch functionality. This functionality is now integrated into everyday life but undoubtedly has its roots in the smart phone and more specifically Apple products such as the i-phone and i-pad.

On my travels selling touch screens I have noticed there appears to be a lot of technological jargon regarding multi touch.

There are several definitions out there developed in dark rooms by display or touch Screen Company marketing chaps.... normally developed around their own products features......

As an independent touch screen specialist I believe it’s important to cut the marketing bull and get to basics therefore we have trawled the market and discussed this subject with many manufacturers users and integrators  and have found that the terminology developed by 3M  to be the most widely used and generally accepted which are as follows...

Single Touch

Single Touch occurs when a finger or stylus creates a touch event on the surface of a touch sensor or within a touch field so it is detected by the touch controller and the application can determine the X, Y coordinates of the touch event. These technologies have been integrated into millions of devices and typically do not have the ability to detect or resolve more than a single touch point at a time as part of their standard configuration.

Single Touch with Pen Input

Single Touch with Pen input functionality can range from a simple, inactive pointer or stylus to complex, active tethered pens. Inactive pens enable the same input characteristics as a finger, but with greater pointing accuracy, while sophisticated, active pens can provide more control and uses for the touch system with drawing and palm rejection capabilities, and mouse event capabilities.

Single Touch with Gesture

Enhancements to firmware, software and hardware by many single touch technologies have increased their touch functionality. Some touch technologies can use advanced processing capabilities to "detect" or recognize that a second touch event is occurring, which is called a "gesture event." Since single touch systems can't resolve the exact location of the second touch event they rely on algorithms to interpret or anticipate the intended gesture event input. Common industry terms for this functionality are two-finger gestures, dual touch, dual control, and gesture touch.

Dual Touch/Two Touch

Two Touch refers to a touch system that can detect and resolve two discrete, simultaneous touch events. The best demonstration of Two Touch capability is to draw two parallel lines on the screen at the same time. Two Touch systems can also support gesturing.

Multi-touch

Multi-touch refers to a touch system's ability to simultaneously detect and resolve a minimum of 3+ touch points. All 3 or more touches are detected and fully resolved resulting in a dramatically improved touch experience. Multi-touch is considered by many to become a widely-used interface mainly because of the speed, efficiency and intuitiveness of the technology.

With new applications written regularly incorporating dual or multi touch functionality the uptake and requirements for dual  and multi touch are growing, here at e-screen we are finding at least 4 out of ten touch screen  inquiries are for multi touch, or at least the customer perceives they need multi touch!       Often as a future proof feature.....

At e-screen we are proud of our specialist focus on touch screen technology; we have access to a full range of technologies from various manufacturers across the globe keeping many ex stock in our 8000 sq ft UK warehouse facility. This gives us the opportunity to discuss our clients’ needs then recommend a technology that best suits the customer requirements.

 

 

e-screen blog coming soon!!!!!

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