Multi-touch surface based on RGBD camera

The popularity of interactive surfaces is increasing due to their user-friendliness and the lack of need to use special controllers. With appropriate technologies we can add multi-touch functionality to almost any surface. Today numerous museums use interactive surfaces to display the information on user-interesting ways. Number of schools and companies using interactive tables is increasing, due to the positive effects the usage has on the enhancement of the interest of participants. Interactive tables, walls and floors are usually useful for advertising purposes as well as they always attract crowds. In addition to more established two-dimensional interactive surfaces, three-dimensional are slowly emerging as well. With the release of low-cost RGBD cameras they are becoming increasingly available to general public. They allow the users to interact with the system not only by touching the surface but also by adjusting the distance of the fingers to the surface. This diploma thesis describes the development of a system for 3D human-computer interaction. The system is capable of detecting and tracking user's fingertips and thus creating user-friendly and affordable multi-touch surface. Three-dimensional information of the observed scene is captured by RBGD camera Kinect. Information about the detected fingertips is transmitted to the target application over TUIO protocol. System is evaluated based on the accuracy of detections, response time, and user experience. During the assessment it proved to be very accurate and responsive enough to be used in everyday applications