Getting to work on the Virtual Desk

 

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By Stuart Turton in Hannover

Posted on 6 Mar 2008 at 11:53

A virtual desktop system, which employs a multi-touch surface, hopes to redefine the way we think about our desktop environment.

The virtual desktop is superficially similar to Microsoft's Surface, allowing users to move and manipulate objects on the screen with their fingers.

However, instead of being restricted to a table design, its creators, the Fraunhofer IDG, allow the technology powering it to be built into any form factor, from a table to a wall panel.

It's also been specifically created as a virtual desk, rather than a retail or entertainment tool, and the demonstration at the CeBIT booth involves a multi-touch table covered in complex architectural drawings scanned in from the originals.

At first glance it's easy to believe that the plans are actually strewn about the table, and the resolution was high enough that zooming into a tiny annotated note allowed us to read it without too much distortion.

Using a touch interface similar to that used on the iPhone we were able to rotate the plans, move them about the table and zoom in and out. Documents can also be annotated and the diagrams slide over and each in a convincing way, which allowed us to shrink the documents to the size of a credit card, pile them up and then slide them away into the corner to focus on a blown up schematic.

While the touch interface feels heavy compared to the iPhone and Surface, requiring solid taps to be recognised, a spokesperson for the Fraunhofer IDG, assured us that it was adjustable depending on use.

Impressively, the inbuilt "Instant Reality" technology behind the table includes a virtual reality mapping tool for rendering the schematics in three dimensions. When a diagram is tapped a 3D representation of the area appears in a new window on the table - itself navigable by touch.

Fraunhofer IDG says that any documents can be scanned and used on the table and that the technology supports a wide range of file formats.

Click here for full coverage of CeBIT 2008.