Multitouch on N900

[inkjected]

I was on GSMArena today and was reading an article about the new Symbian^3 that said:
"Multitouch is finally making its way to the Symbian platform - both on capacitive and resistive displays."

If Nokia has multitouch working on resistive screens for it's Symbian OS, do you think that they will bring that to the N900 in future firmware updates or in MeeGo?

[cashclientel]

it is not possible on the N900 due to hardware limitations

[esthreel]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/20/resistive-htc-devices-can-have-pseudo-multitouch-too/

Could it be possible now?

[sepehrsfmech]

there was this game on he 5800 xpress, like tap tap revenge , but MUCH simpler,it had multitouch somehow.. and was released in october 2009

[Shady 91']

with future update we can zoom with pinch gesture. All thanks to QT.

But is a false pinch gesture....very similar however

[esthreel]

with future update we can zoom with pinch gesture. All thanks to QT.
But is a false pinch gesture....very similar hower

NICE!

[stayloa]

Wow... I'm impressed. Is it possible on the n900? That's as in, how different is the touchscreen on this to the HTC and do they produce similarly read outputs?

I'm guessing that math(s) (damn incrrect spelling!!) isn't going to be commonknowledge though and the code won't be open source...

So, anyone got a maths phd?!

[lifenexus]

check this
http://thenokiareview.com/2010/03/16/multi-touch-demo-on-the-nokia-n900-using-theremin/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNTsIut1h98

[hopbeat]

to all (I'm the author of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNTsIut1h98):

this is extremely simple and common knowledge, Engadget simply failed in posting that as some kind of revelation. There are even scientific papers on this topic (including some more advanced techniques for recognizing this kind of gesture).

In short: it is not comfortable to use this technique for pinch to zoom (is someone reaaally wants to try this, PM me), as the problem is that we have two moving points. However, if we think about using that for one fixed point and one moving point, the usecase can be interesting.

Think about this:

http://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1hdYqaXjF8toythNv_KqwyDKGCqu6famEvRyP4D39b3 U&w=960&h=720
Where the big circle is an analog stick and buttons are.. well buttons :) If the pseudo-multitouch it is easy to be able to control the analog stick and SIMULTANEOUSLY discover press of the button. Which would be nice control in the games.

[guy2die4]

not sure if many ppl have tried this....pinch to zoom-out works in angry birds as well....it enables you to see the full pitch on the n900 screen...it is not as smooth but works....

[hopbeat]

@guy2die4, it's not pinch to zoom in this game, it's just swiping your finger up and down.

[UNderworld]

not sure if many ppl have tried this....pinch to zoom-out works in angry birds as well....it enables you to see the full pitch on the n900 screen...it is not as smooth but works....

lol just swipe one finger up or down it will zoom in and out...

[esthreel]

not sure if many ppl have tried this....pinch to zoom-out works in angry birds as well....it enables you to see the full pitch on the n900 screen...it is not as smooth but works....

In angry birds you can move finger up and down to zoom in/out no pinch.

[UNderworld]

@guy2die4, it's not pinch to zoom in this game, it's just swiping your finger up and down.
ur faster than my n900:p

[lifenexus]

to all (I'm the author of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNTsIut1h98):

this is extremely simple and common knowledge, Engadget simply failed in posting that as some kind of revelation. There are even scientific papers on this topic (including some more advanced techniques for recognizing this kind of gesture).

In short: it is not comfortable to use this technique for pinch to zoom (is someone reaaally wants to try this, PM me), as the problem is that we have two moving points. However, if we think about using that for one fixed point and one moving point, the usecase can be interesting.

Think about this:

http://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1hdYqaXjF8toythNv_KqwyDKGCqu6famEvRyP4D39b3 U&w=960&h=720
Where the big circle is an analog stick and buttons are.. well buttons :) If the pseudo-multitouch it is easy to be able to control the analog stick and SIMULTANEOUSLY discover press of the button. Which would be nice control in the games.
wow! i really wanted to find the author. do u have some demo app that i can try out? did u write this in qt or just standard c++?
engadget is only gonna be busy on speculating why apple store is down..

[vitaminj]

How on earth can you do fake pinch-to-zoom?
Fake multitouch works on the basis that the screen reports the mid-point of two press locations, so software can detect that a swift motion of reported coordinates is probably another finger press at twice the distance of the reported move.
Pinch gestures however don't alter the mid-point of the two points of contact - you're moving your two fingers in opposite directions - so how is software supposed to tell what's really happening?
Impossible, I say!

[hopbeat]

@vitaminj, "you're moving your two fingers in opposite directions"
That's where the trick is, with fake thing you can just move one finger from the other, to move the midpoint.

[hopbeat]

And here is the application (little Qt app, uses OpenGL backend)

http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s081608/photoViewer
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s081608/photoviewer.cpp
http://www.student.dtu.dk/~s081608/photoviewer.h

[Bec]

I think this looks very nice - the practical usability is there and since it's now a commonly used gesture it would be nice to have it on the N900 as well.

Could it be possible to create a plug-in for the photo browser?

[Cue]

IMO any ported pinch to zoom app should use the proximity sensor as the pinch to zoom trigger then your first touch with the other finger can be the zero reference point, then you can rotate and zoom as usual.

hopbeat the idea for an analogue stick and buttons is really interesting. would pressing the buttons cause the analog stick to misbehave depending on how hard you press the button?

[javispedro]

http://docs.google.com/drawings/pub?id=1hdYqaXjF8toythNv_KqwyDKGCqu6famEvRyP4D39b3 U&w=960&h=720

I've tried this already and in fact there is a build of drnoksnes out there using something like that, where you could actually visualize where the application was expecting the next press for button X, which varied depending on initial finger position and pressure.

Unfortunately, while I'm pretty sure it can work OK for 3 buttons + a game where heavy jitter on the joystick is allowed, for anything more complex (like the SNES joypad -- 4 buttons + pad -- already ignoring shoulder and start/select) it was unusable, UNLESS you played with two stylus.

When using two fingers, slight pressure changes cause pretty much unpredictable position movements.

Btw, lcuk is pretty much a pioneer here -- he did fake multitouch on a N800 way before that engadget article.

[maemo5]

http://doc.qt.nokia.com/4.6/examples-multitouch.html
those example can help you?

[maemo5]

?????????????????

[qwazix]

how low level access do we have to the touch screen interface? I was thinking if we could get the two x and two y's of two touch points. That would narrow the possible touch points to four. This is enough for most uses (pinch to zoom, gaming)
________
LIVE SEX WEBSHOWS (http://livesexwebshows.com/)

[RobbieThe1st]

http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/12/hacker-cons-htc-touch-pro-2-into-providing-multitouch-other-win/
Just leaving this here. It seems to be workable on our n900s too, as previous posters have said.