Touch Table IR Tracking System

This project aims to create an infrared tracking system for tactile tables.

Tracking application detecting a single tactile object.

Installation

MacOS

Just copy and past this snippet in the terminal to quickly install and start the system (only MacOS).

echo IR Tracking Quickstart

if [[ $? != 0 ]] ; then
	echo isntalling Homebrew
	ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
else
	echo Homebrew already installed!
	brew update
fi

brew install git
brew install --cask temurin

git clone https://github.com/IAD-ZHDK/IR_tracking
cd IR_tracking

echo starting...
./gradlew run

echo done

After the first time installation, please change into the installation folder and only run the following in the terminal:

./gradlew run

Windows

On Windows follow these steps to install the software:

# install Eclipse Temurin 17 (JDK)
winget install -e --id EclipseAdoptium.Temurin.17.JDK

# run software
gradlew.bat run

Develop

Install and Run

Everything is installed through the gradle dependency manager. To run the application, OpenJDK 11 is needed and can be installed through your favourite package manager. On MacOS we recommend to use brew:

brew install --cask temurin

winget install -e --id EclipseAdoptium.Temurin.17.JDK

Now just run the following command and gradlew will download, build and run the project.

# windows
gradlew.bat run

# macOS / unix
./gradlew run

Build for Distribution

To bundle all dependencies and build the project run the following commands. This will take a bit of time because JavaCV will be added to the jar-file.

# windows
gradlew.bat clean build jpackage --info

# macOS / unix
./gradlew clean build jpackage --info

The built distributable can be found under build/dist and includes the JVM as well as all dependencies.

How to use

Example

To connect with the IR tracking system it is possible to listen to predefined OSC messages. There is already a TrackingClient written for Processing to connect with the tracking application. Check out the ExampleReceiver sketch.

OSC Protocol

The OSC protocol sends out events which are need for the visualisation. It already normalizes and filters the values.

// Add is sent if a new object is detected.

"/tracker/add"
	- uniqueId (int) // unique number
	- identifier (int) // object type
	- x-coordinate (float) // normalized
	- y-coordinate (float) // normalized
	- rotation (float) // between 0.0-180.0
	- intensity (float) // normalized

// Every n millisecond an update is sent for each active object.

"/tracker/update"
	- uniqueId (int) // unique number
	- identifier (int) // object type
	- x-coordinate (float) // normalized
	- y-coordinate (float) // normalized
	- rotation (float) // between 0.0-180.0
	- intensity (float) // normalized

// Remove is sent if an object is not detected anymore.

"/tracker/remove"
	- uniqueId (int) // unique number

About

Developed at Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK 2022