22″ Touchscreen Ready to Rock. Fingerprints not included.

by Josh on January 22, 2009 · View Comments

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albatron-optical-monitor I bet all of you are anxious to have someone stick their donut fingers all over your monitor screen as soon as these touchscreen displays start showing up. And showing up they will. March 2009, marks the month Albatron Technology will debut their 21.5″ Full HD multi-touch display.

This sneaks in right on the heels of a Windows 7 Beta release that sports multi-touch capability. This could mean big changes in the future for desk and CAD jockeys alike.

Oh and this isn’t just any old touchscreen monitor…

It’s an Optical Touch Monitor (OTM) that uses optical sensor to detect movement to a more accurate degree.

The difference between an Optical Touch Panel and a traditional touch panel lie in the sensing material, that make up the screen itself. In a traditional touch panel monitor (capacitive, resistance types), “sensing” technology is embedded into every square inch of the screen. In Albatron’s OTM, there is absolutely NO “sensing” technology in the screen per-se; movement is all tracked with infrared light, optical sensors and reflection bars surrounding the screen on the edges of the frame. – _{Press Release}

Other features it will have:

120 points/second refresh rate
DVI port, DSub
Audio Line-Out
USB 2.0 connection

Price? unknown at the moment, but I’m guessing sub $900.

Again with the multi-touch??!
We’ve looked at the possibilities of how multi-touch will affect CAD/PLM. I admit the whole idea fascinates me. But you gotta admit, if this functionality is there is gonna seep into how we design products just a little, don’t ya think?

BRS

This would be amazing stuff for some of the stuff I do at the office and at home. mostly @ home though.. esp. with Art and music software I use.. I wouldn't be able to use my current software with this would I? Or would they come out with patches and whatnot?
Kevin Quigley

Do you really see multi touch being used for CAD? I have a hard enough time keeping my screens clear as it is, without worrying about grubby finger marks all over it. I can really only see this applying to systems like the Cintiq, or for certain applications where direct input would help (like kiosks, or POS units).

Apple has had multi touch as part of OSX for some time and there are no (as far as I'm aware) desktop applications designed around that yet - iPhone sure, but thats a hand held device.

Maybe thats the future? Handheld screens like sketchpads?

Do you remember Think3 voice activated modelling from about 2000? I was a Think 3 user for a few years and dabbled with this and it did work once you had trained it to recognise your voice. Problem was it was no faster than using a mouse. It was good at finding obscure menu commands you rarely used (assuming you could remember the exact syntax - "assembly, explode". After playing with it for a few months I dropped back to standard mouse.

But in reality all the voice recognition stuff was built into Windows, and presumably still is, yet we don't see any mainstream applications using it. I suspect the same will be true for multi touch?

Give me a mouse any day! The mouse has to be the single most important interface advancement of the 20th century. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa081...
Josh M

You're right, Kevin, mostly :). Thanks for the comment! I think an environment where we are able to have constant interaction with our model is going to provide some really practical advancement for 3D CAD.

The touch technology is a bit more practical than the voice recognition (although pretty cool as well) simply because you don't have the verbal interference going on around you in a open design/engineering setting.

There are SolidWorks users using the Cintiq 21" but I would debate if it's faster than a mouse as well. A lot of that is going to depend on how software is going to change, advance and implement better UI for designing. Speaking of which, check out the next post on the I(heart)sketch UI. Applied to 3D CAD??? hmmmmm.
Ray Reynolds

I don't look forward to the day when I have to do all my designing with my arms out-stretched for 8hrs while I and others smudge-up my monitor. It would be interesting though, to be able to spin a model or modify a feature directly on the screen, especially in one of those impromptu "cubicle meetings" that we all love. I don't seen this really embedding itself into my normal work flow however.
Rod_Uding

Sounds and looks really cool, be interesting to try it out for 30 days. I'm still iffy on these screens and CAD.