A new technique allows the creation of touch screens through nebulization.
A Bristol team challenged the idea that touchscreens can only be rectangular and 2D by developing interactive displays to spray directly onto surfaces. The name of the technique is ProtoSpray.
Electronic painting
Inspired by the way an artist creates graffiti on a wall and using a new combination of electronic spray and 3D printing, the technique allows the creation of displays on surfaces that go beyond the usual shapes.
"We freed displays from their 2D rectangular enclosures by developing a process that allows the creation of interactive objects of any shape. Objects with conductive plastic and electroluminescence obtained with a very accessible process."
Ollie Hanton, PhD student and lead author of the research, describes ProtoSpray with understandable pride: his paper received an honorable mention at the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Information Systems.
The aim of the research was to find ideas and solutions to broaden the scope of interaction between people and digital technologies.
Each object will be a screen
The ProtoSpray process, developed in collaboration with MIT's multimedia laboratory, opens up the opportunity for manufacturers, hobbyists and researchers to develop interactive objects of any shape.
"The printers 3D they allowed the personal manufacture of objects, but our work goes even further. We can print an object in conductive plastic and turn it into an interactive object. An object that can light up, transmit images and information, react to touch like an interface. "
Dr. Anne Roudaut, an associate professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Bristol, who oversaw the research, said the next step will be to create a machine that can automatically 3D print and spray on 3D printed objects. A touch object printer.
