FAA Gets a Big-Screen Touch Table

Matt writes "Northrop Grumman, best known for missile systems and other military gear, has for years been selling the TouchTable as part of what it calls an ' integrated collaboration environment.' They delivered their TouchTable to the US Federal Aviation Administration last month and will showcase their technologies next week at a defense conference in London. There are two versions of the TouchTable; one with an 84-inch screen (1600x1200 resolution), the other with a 45-inch screen (1920x1080 resolution). Moving a hand across the surface pans the display' two fingers moving apart zooms it out; and two fingers moving together zooms it in. This simple interface allows users easily to change a view from miles above the Earth to a detailed layout of a single city block."

Sounds like an Iphone?

[blantonl]

Sounds to me like a massive iPhone. I wonder if any patents were violated with this thing?

Counter-intuitive zoom?

[meatmanek]

Shouldn't the zoom go the other way, as if you're stretching or shrinking the image?

Interface Design

[Dun Malg]

two fingers moving apart zooms it out; and two fingers moving together zooms it in

This strikes me as counterintuitive. Perhaps actual testing proved this was the best way, but it seems to me that it's exactly backwards. If you wanted to zoom out, would it not be more logical to place two fingers on two points on the map (say) six inches apart, then have the map zoom out as you "dragged" the two points closer together, and vice-versa?

Re:Interface Design

[AHumbleOpinion]

"two fingers moving apart zooms it out; and two fingers moving together zooms it in"

This strikes me as counterintuitive. Perhaps actual testing proved this was the best way, but it seems to me that it's exactly backwards. If you wanted to zoom out, would it not be more logical to place two fingers on two points on the map (say) six inches apart, then have the map zoom out as you "dragged" the two points closer together, and vice-versa?

Disclaimer, I'm a software developer who has done graphics, perhaps I share the same warped perspective as the designers. Moving the fingers apart to zoom out makes sense to me, you are enlarging the piece of the world/map to be displayed on the display.

Horribly Poor Design: Grease Marks

[reporter]

Anyone who has ever operated a Sony camcorder understands the fundamental design flaw with the military Touch Table. Constantly touching the screen with your hands smudges the screen. Seeing the streaks of grease and the occasion bits of dirt is distracting. In a real-time battle scenario, I would not want to be distracted.

The Touch Table should be modified so that external sensors can detect the motion of the hand about 1 foot away from the screen. Those sensors would then translate the motion into zooms and pans of the image on the screen.

Re:Resolution

[AaxelB]

This is very true, and it also seems slightly ridiculous that the 84" table has a lower resolution than the 45".

I can see why, though, after looking around a bit. On such a large table, if you're collaborating, you want to be able to see and read what's going on on the other side of the table. If it were more standard-sized pixels, a lot of people couldn't tell for the life of them what their comrade on the other side of the table is pointing at. Granted, ideally we'd have high (good-looking) resolution and just use large fonts and such, but why? It's cheaper to use bigger pixels and it wouldn't add much functionality to upgrade to 6400x4800.

You can see in the first picture in their (pdf) Brochure [touchtable.com] a dialog box on the table that is a good 12" wide. In order for people all around the table to see and read the window, it all but needs to be huge.

Re:Interface Design

[Animaether]

Their mental model may be based on this simple notion. Take a balloon with a print on it, like a logo. Don't inflate it, just cut the part with the print on it out. Find a small opening somewhere in your house to view this print through. Now take the piece between two fingers, and stretch it apart. What you see through that small opening is the print getting enlarged. The more you stretch, the bigger the tiny detail in the print becomes. This is akin to zooming in.

Put differently, and within the device's context, say you're viewing the Boston area. Now you want to zoom in on Boston Logan Airport. You put one finger at one corner of the airport, and the other at another corner. Keep in mind that the entire Boston area is currently in view, so your fingers will be spaced fairly closely together. Now to zoom in, I - and GP - would simply move the two fingers apart - perhaps all the way to opposite corners of the device's display. Essentially, the rectangle whose opposite corner boundaries were defined by the two fingertips now get re-mapped to the whatever two corners I specify after my fingers leave the display's surface. Now Boston Logal Airport occupies all of the display. That's zooming in - not out.

I'm sure it will feel intuitive enough once you work with it for a while - but I don't think that necessarily means that it is the -most- intuitive option available.