3M multi touch monitor M2256PW
Hey,
we just checked out the new 3M M2256PW multi-touch monitor as much better alternative for the Lemur or the iPAD.
That's what we found out:
Windows automatically supports 20 finger touchscreen, Mac OS X does not. That's why they need a 3rd party driver cause their market of MAC users is very small and they have to developpe a complete new driver for MAC which is much more difficult than for Windows cause like I said, Windows itself already supports 20 finger touch by itself.
There is a 3rd party driver for the M2256PW which supports 1 finger touch up till now and it was just released (in august). They are developping a new driver for 4 finger touch, which means it will still take a long time before they have 10 fingers or more - if they ever will do it.
the guy said that they tried a M2256PW with OS X Snow Leopard without installing a driver. The system recognized a hardware device but whenever they touched the monitor the mouse went up to the left corner and stayed there....
shortly: all this doesn't sound very encouraging I guess.......
More info about the M2256PW:
http://solutions.3m.com/wps/portal/!ut/p/c1/04_SB8K8xLLM9MSSzPy8xBz94NS8-NBg_Qj9KLP4IC8Py1BTI2MDC1cvUwNPI08Pf69AT2MLc1P9ggxHRQDcs2DW/
and the 3rd party driver:
http://touch-base.com/documentation/MacOSXPlatformNotes.htm
IMHO a direct connection between this monitor and the hi object in Max should be tested I guess, as the specs states that the data are sent using that protocol. 3M hasn't used Max to run the tests I suppose...
I mean: getting the control data in the OS and in Max are two different things...
I think I remember seeing the price and saying to myself: ipad, ipad, ipad.
i think this is no comparison...cause on the 3M what you see is what you get and you don't have to create an extra interface. u have the max/msp directly on your touch screen.....that would be fantastic, wouldn't it?
3m is currently working on a multitouch driver for MacOS.
Hope it will come soon.
Stumbled across this thread while Googling for a MacOS driver for this screen. It seems that 3M is now simply distributing the Touch-Base "Universal Pointing Device Driver" to cover the Mac world.
Does anyone else have experience with this hardware and Max/MSP?
The recently introduced Zero Touch technique might be a cheaper solution now: http://ecologylab.cse.tamu.edu/research/zerotouch/index.html
They use an array of pulsed IR emitters/receivers. This is the kind of setup you might build with an Arduino board I think...
This guy has done a similar thing with an Arduino Mega:
http://arduinoshop.blogspot.com/2011/04/low-cost-multi-touch-lcd-panel.html
But can you go to a store and buy one?
OK, you can't buy the 3M at your local MediaMarkt/Currys/fnac/RadioShack, but you can order them from your local 3M rep.
As for jazzisfaction's reported problem about the mouse cursor getting glued to the top left corner: been there, done that, found the fix. Touch-base documents that their drivers are only 32-bit capable. So you have to boot up your snazzy Snow Leopard superstudly multi-core 64-bit capable architecture in wimpy 32-bit mode. Cf http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3773 for the how-to.
I can't believe how long I spent before that penny dropped.-(
My current problem: I know I had the 3M USB talking nicely to the [hi] object in Max/MSP. As of today [hi] refuses to even list the 3M MicroTouch USB controller, neither 'info' nor 'menu' messages see it. So there's no way to get any data from the device. Any ideas?
Why don't you run Windows ? You can get it at your local MediaMarkt/Currys/fnac/RadioShack, can't you ? BootCamp is your friend.
Haven't been able to compare it to anything but my iphone but the PQ stuff has work nicely. It's a little bit of a guessing game unless you're looking head on but I mastered it in a few days.
"the guy" is really nice and helpful too.