Book Interface Control System

As mentioned previously I need to find a more physical and reliable method of controlling the incoming web content that is to be displayed using Augmented Reality. I stumbled upon something I hadn't seen since I was a kid. it was (at the time a really cool) book that featured in the cartoon inspector gadget, which was basically a computer embeded within a book that feautred screens and button interface. Now despite this not being a real technology and a cartoon after all, I decided to take some inspiration from the idea and create a physical control system to be embedded within the book.

My idea for the control system was to incorporate a Wacom graphics tablet to the book in order to control directly from the book itself. Luckily I have an A5 size tablet which fits perfectly on the inside of the front cover and can allow me to overlay a page over it to hide what it actually is and to place an interface design over the top.

The first thing I had to do was to connect the tablet to Max/MSP, again fortunately an external object for the detection of a graphics tablet has been created for max enabling the detection of all the buttons and surface area for use within Max. I set up the patch so that specific x/y coordinates of the tablets drawing area would enable image set selection and image size selection.

Here is a an image of the patch detecting the coordinates and outputing the values to select size and set.

Basically it detects the x and y axis coordinates of where the tablet pen is positioned on the drawing area and if they match a specific coordinate it will trigger a bang that will send a pre defined value to the flash server and be sent as a variable to Flash that will in turn control the image size and image set. The image set has been defined within Max/MSP and is loaded via an external text file. The user has to define images to each set from the external file and that will be automatically loaded into Max/MSP upon start up and then depending on the coordinate position of the tablet will select Sets 1,2 or 3.

This image shows the rest of the patch which features 24 text objects which will load images 1-24 from the 3 sets of images and below that is the flash server featuring an array of outputs sent to flash in the form of an array and takes values from each to load the specific image sets and sizes to be displayed in AR.

The next step is to create an interface for the tablet within the book itself so users know which set they are selecting as well as image sizing and create a corresponding on screen interface to enable feedback from selections.