CMU researchers have now developed a technology to turn surfaces of a wide variety of shapes and sizes into touchpads. The technology is so simple that it uses spray paint to convert any surface into a touchpad.A touch interface is common for small, flat surfaces such as smartphone or tablet screens.

Figure 1:a technology to turn surfaces of a wide variety of shapes and sizes into touchpads.

Figure 1 shows that Scientists named this technology as Electrick. It holds the potential to turn any wall, furniture, steering wheels and even toys into touch sensors. The user just needs to apply any electrically conductive coatings or materials on the objects or surfaces.

During the experiment, researchers showed how they could use an electric field tomography to sense the position of a finger touch. For that purpose, they used electrodes and attached them sequentially to the conductive materials. [1]

The researchers said the technology could be used for educational purposes, by hobbyists and in other commercial applications.

"The goal of this technology is to enable touch sensing on everything," Zhang said. "Touch has been very successful. It's a very intuitive way to interact with computer resources. So, we were wondering whether we could enable these touch-sensing capabilities in many more objects other than just phones and tablets."

Smartphone touch screens are made of expensive materials and require costly and sophisticated techniques to build. As such, it can be complicated to create touch surfaces on objects that are large or irregular in shape, Zhang said. There are ways to enable touch control on larger objects, but these methods mostly rely on detection of motion by cameras. However, these techniques also have limitations, Zhang said. [2]

Like many other touchscreens, even Electrick depends on the shunting effect. It means that when a finger touches the touchpad, it eventually shunts a bit of electric current to ground. By attaching multiple electrodes to the object or its conductive coating, the researchers have shown that they could localize when and where the shunting occurs.

With the Electrick technology, it is said that one can come up with an interactive smartphone case that can be used to open applications such as camera or game controller at any position as per their convenience. [3]

References:

1. https://www.techexplorist.com/technology-convert-surface-touchpad-using-spray-paint/5628/
2. https://www.livescience.com/59278-turn-any-flat-surface-into-touchpad.html
3. https://www.gizbot.com/miscellaneous/news/electrick-turn-any-surface-into-touchscreen-with-spray-paint-040635.html?story=3

Cite this article:

Sri Vasagi K (2022), Turn Any Flat Surface into a Touchpad Using Spray Paint, Anatechmaz, pp. 348