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Touchless

Touchless is an Office Labs Grassroots Project that started from an idea Mike Wasserman, a Microsoft Office Graphics developer, started during his college days to create multi-touch experience using a webcam. Through Office Labs sponsorship, Mike’s weekend hobby turned into an open-source prototype, currently available for download.

With just a webcam and color markers, you can get a taste of Touchless through the multi-touch demos provided. Play a pong-like game, rotate maps, control a snake, and draw with markers. If you’re someone technical, the Software Development Kit (SDK) is available for you to view, contribute to the code, or create your own multi-touch applications to help explore the possibilities.

See all the fun things you can do with Touchless!

See all the fun things you can do with Touchless!

LATEST BLOGS | RECENT DISCUSSIONS | FAQ

1. What is the Touchless SDK?
2. What is the Touchless Demo?
3. What does open source mean?
4. Are there any restrictions to using the Touchless SDK and Demo code?
5. Why is Touchless open source?
6. What are the requirements for Touchless?
7. What types of webcams are supported?
8. How can I try out the Touchless demo?
9. How can I build my own Touchless applications?
10. Who developed the Touchless SDK and Demo?
11. What type of assistance did the Touchless project receive from Office Labs?
12. Will Touchless be integrated into a Microsoft product?
13. How can I get support for Touchless?
14. How can I share feedback and ideas on Touchless?
15. How can I post my demo here or contribute to Touchless?
16. I have a question that isn’t answered here. What should I do?

1. What is the Touchless SDK?
The Touchless SDK is an open source SDK for .NET applications. It enables developers to create multi-touch based applications using a webcam for input. Color based markers defined by the user are tracked and their information is published through events to clients of the SDK. In a nutshell, the Touchless SDK enables touch without touching.

2. What is the Touchless Demo?
The Touchless Demo is an open source application that anyone with a webcam can use to experience multi-touch, no geekiness required. The demo was created using the Touchless SDK and Windows Forms with C#.

3. What does open source mean?
Open source means the source code for the Touchless SDK and Demo is available for anyone to see, to use and to contribute to. For more information on open source, check out the Open Source Initiative.

4. Are there any restrictions to using the Touchless SDK and Demo code?
Yes. Touchless License uses the Microsoft Public License (MS-PL).

5. Why is Touchless open source?
There is so much potential with Touchless, but Office Labs has limited resources. Therefore, we want to encourage anyone to contribute and benefit from this project.

6. What are the requirements for Touchless?
Windows Vista or Windows XP
Webcam
Color Markers (M&Ms, ends of pens, painted finger nails, etc.)

7. What types of webcams are supported?
DirectX 9 DirectShow-compliant webcams. If you don’t know what that means don’t worry about it neither did I - most webcams should work.
We used Microsoft LifeCams VX-3000 and VX-6000.

8. How can I try out the Touchless demo?
Save Touchless 1.0 to your computer
Right click on the compressed folder select Extract All.
Make sure you have a webcam hooked up
Double click TouchlessDemo.exe

9. How can I build my own Touchless applications?
Save Touchless 1.0 to your computer
Right click on the compressed folder select Extract All.
Follow the instructions provided in Touchless.rtf
You can also watch our video walkthrough of creating a drawing application

10. Who developed the Touchless SDK and Demo?
Touchless was created by Mike Wasserman initially as a college project to provide a cheap way to experience multi-touch capabilities, without expensive hardware or software. Mike joined Microsoft as a developer on the Office Graphics team and continues to work on this project on his own time. Mike received support from Office Labs, which offers assistance to “weekend coders” at Microsoft.

11. What type of assistance did the Touchless project receive from Office Labs?
Office Labs provided Mike with resources to help design, implement and release the SDK and demo.

12. Will Touchless be integrated into a Microsoft product?
There are no plans for Touchless to be integrated into a Microsoft product.

13. How can I get support for Touchless?
You can request support in the Discussions section.

14. How can I share feedback and ideas on Touchless?
You can share your feedback and ideas in the Discussions section.
You can also vote on feature requests or post your own in the Issue Tracker section.

15. How can I post my demo here or contribute to Touchless?
Request access by getting in touch with Mike Wasserman

16. I have a question that isn’t answered here. What should I do?
You can ask your questions in the Discussions section.
You can also get in touch with Mike Wasserman

Start a discussion thread...

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Requirements: Windows XP or Vista, Webcam

Limitations: English Only

Last updated: 04/13/2009

IN THE NEWS

Microsoft Office Labs Releases “Touchless” Multi-Touch Software As An Open-Source SDK
www.techcrunch.com

Microsoft's Touchless SDK pulls a mouse out of thin air
www.infoworld.com

Microsoft's experiment in multi-touch computing is open source
news.cnet.com

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