
Dry erase board lined with IR sensors to record pen strokes [video] - arey_abhishek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxmVtfF6pIo
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jwcacces
My high school had these in 1995. Each marker color had a different reflective
pattern on a band around the tip so the scanning laser could read it like a
bar code. I remember the eraser having a solid reflective band all the way
around. It was pretty cool, as we all got whiteboard "transcripts" emailed to
us at the end of the class that you could play back / pause / rewind / etc...
whenever you wanted.

Also, these boards had no projectors (they used real ink in the markers) and
didn't require special markers (just the barcoded pen collars, which were
removable)

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raldi
And the erasers were circular, so that their rotation wasn't significant and
didn't need to be known by the software.

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jwcacces
Yes!

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arey_abhishek
OP here. If you'd like to see a kickstarter project out of this, please upvote
this comment!

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olympus
Not that you asked, but here are some ways I think you could go about
releasing this to the public and make some money off of it (only one method
uses Kickstarter):

1\. You could do a Kickstarter where you sold a kit that you sourced with
hardware from Alibaba and code you wrote yourself. This would be a lot of
effort, but could be fairly profitable if the KS succeeds.

2\. You could release some how to instructions on how people can make their
own panel, and charge for software. You don't even need KS for this, just a
PayPal (or other money transfer company) account.

3\. You could release your code on GitHub for free and let people pay you out
of the kindness of their hearts, either through PayPal, Patreon, or Gratipay.

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phpnode
> 3\. You could release your code on GitHub for free and let people pay you
> out of the kindness of their hearts, either through PayPal, Patreon, or
> Gratipay.

Please don't do this, you will starve. Very few people are able to make enough
money from open source in this way and I don't think this is the kind of thing
that's suited to it.

Commercialize this technology, market it, sell it.

~~~
monopolemagnet
Exactly. Corporate and university shops often come off like the rich-yet-
freeloader archetype whom goes to the donation-based museum or listens to NPR
but never puts anything in... with loads of cash they can afford easily afford
it, but they won't it if they can have their maintenance folks can put it
together for "free."

The main considerations revolve around:

a. Is it patentable? (OP should contact a former USPTO examiner or a reputable
legal shop like Orrick.) Provisional patent a minimum, seems a must, or it's
not worth going forward if Mr. Wonderful can knock it off in China.

b. Is it worth the effort to source and offer components which are
commodities? Some folks want "batteries included" and will pay for it, so mark
those up to where it makes sense to make it worth the while.

Disclaimer: I've worked inside ivy school research and non-research depts and
enterprise shops too.

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natch
Please don't listen to all the naysayers (I was about to be one of them) who
are saying this has "already been done." Sure, they are right. But is there
one in every room of every office? No. But there could be.

The thing that has changed between back then when this stuff was first done
and now, is that everybody has smartphones. The old dinosaur systems aren't
priced to take this into account.

~~~
j45
Agreed. Doing something for the first time, vs doing it well enough for
adoption, or in a way that is more accessible is a creation itself.

If this was a frame or a kit I could attach to an existing board, I'd be
ordering it right now. Shipping whiteboards is expensive so I hope that might
be an option.

As the Apple Pencil has demonstrated again, most new things aren't always
quite new. There's few form factor, interface, or screen innovations. What
will be new is new ways to create using what we have.

Where you come across them, Naysayers are usually self-doubting doubt
worshippers. Every person with unimpressed input should be taken with a grain
of salt relative to how much a person feels the only thing of value is if it's
something new or novel.

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tsangk
If you are interested in a full commercial version of this (sharing an analog
whiteboard with a link), check out
[http://smartkapp.com](http://smartkapp.com)

(Disclosure: Am employee of said company)

~~~
sovande
Ouch, I know that when you see someone has already created a product that you
are working on you should take it as a validation of your idea and not become
discouraged. However, seeing this I can't help feeling bad for the OP. The OP
has a prototype, while this (seems) like a fully fledged and very slick
product with all bases covered and it is even cheap.

~~~
nacs
$900-1200 isn't what I'd call "cheap" (OP says parts for their prototype is
around $150).

Also, another person in this thread mentioned a 42" one from China thats $120
[1]. That is more in the "cheap" range.

[1] [http://goo.gl/N02wRa](http://goo.gl/N02wRa)

~~~
FireBeyond
If parts for your prototype are around $150, most conventional electronic
product pricing wisdom would put this at around $600-$750 retail.

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raldi
This is cool as a DIY project, but digital whiteboards have been around since
at least 1991:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Board](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Board)

~~~
arey_abhishek
All the previous whiteboards force you to buy a projector or invest in smart
pens. This costs ~150USD to make vs. 1500USD+ for the kind of smart boards
that existed in the past.

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joezydeco
You get 42" versions from China for USD$118 each. I'd focus on the software
improvements and benefits.

[http://goo.gl/N02wRa](http://goo.gl/N02wRa)

~~~
hagope
you could probably connect this to rPi to make it smart/connected.

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joezydeco
It's probably using some no-name USB HID driver so yes, it will look like a
mouse to a Linux system as long as the udev tables match up. Might need some
tweaking to handle the multi-touch stuff.

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joezydeco
One tip from someone that has worked with IR emitters/detectors: make sure
your product can handle direct and reflected sunlight.

I'd hate to see you getting all the way through a kickstarter and then finding
out you need to rework your frame to reject ambient and stray IR.

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CamperBob2
Don't these types of systems always use AC modulation for just that reason?

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joezydeco
Usually. Not always.

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27182818284
Fairly neat. Consider the listing status of the video. Right now it is
discouraging people from sharing.

~~~
arey_abhishek
Changed the status to public

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liamuk
Here's a poor man's version that uses <$50 of hardware (a wii remote and an ir
led)

If anyone's interested in playing around with it I'll put up some nicer usage
instructions

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX8JnC7-K8k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX8JnC7-K8k)

[https://github.com/liamuk/Omniboard](https://github.com/liamuk/Omniboard)

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hipjiveguy
i'm interested... i looked at your site, but didn't see any more info on it...
thanks!

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langseth
Is this working on a similar system to Optical touchscreen technology? Did you
build the ir sensors into the edge of the glass or at the surface?

[http://www.planar.com/media/111012/touch_technologies_white_...](http://www.planar.com/media/111012/touch_technologies_white_paper.pdf)

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arey_abhishek
Different technology. This is what we've used: [http://www.touchscreen-
me.com/technologies-comparison-infrar...](http://www.touchscreen-
me.com/technologies-comparison-infrared.php) Same result can be achieved with
CMOS sensors mounted on the corners as well but ambient lighting conditions
affect the way the board works.

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deutronium
Out of interest, I was looking at one of the IR touchscreen frames you linked
to.

The control boards seem to vary in terms of the number of touch points they
can monitor.

So I'm wondering how you distinguish between a marker pen and the larger
whiteboard eraser.

Is it possible to access the raw output from the IR sensors I wonder.

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OliverJones
Virtual Ink, anyone? [http://www.mimio.com/en-
NA.aspx](http://www.mimio.com/en-NA.aspx) Think about how much fun it will be
to try to sell expensive stuff to schools and colleges before you raise a lot
of money for this.

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gohrt
Schools love spending tons of money on crap like this, instead of paying
teachers. Blackboard is a huge company in this space.

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ohitsdom
Really impressive. Must be pretty sensitive IR sensors to not have false
detections when the marker/eraser gets close to the board but doesn't touch
it. Any info on the hardware and software stack?

~~~
arey_abhishek
Thanks. If the pen is about 2mm off the surface, there is a false positive.
Also haven't done palm rejection yet, so your palm needs to be off the board
to write.

~~~
arey_abhishek
I used an off the shelf IR touch frame bought from Aliexpress:
[http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=AS...](http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=AS_20150911112236&SearchText=ir+touch+frame)
All touch inputs fed into Raspbery PI with a wifi dongle.

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bobosha
couldn't we have a webcam to stream/record the video? or perhaps capture
snapshots? If needed we might subtract the human from the video stream using
some basic machine vision techniques.

~~~
imakesnowflakes
Exactly my thoughts when I saw this. The problem with writer obstructing the
view can be solved by place the camera _behind_ the board and using a
translucent white plastic sheet for the board. If the front of the board is
illuminated well, then the camera shouldn't have any problems in capturing the
stuff being written on the translucent board. Mirror the image in software and
you are done!

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MichaelApproved
Looked like it was zoomed in on the written part. I wonder if it would
gradually zoom out, as you write more, or if you could scroll around on the
display to see the rest of the writing.

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Milner08
I remember my dad having something very similar in his office when I was a
kid. You could write on it like a normal white board then it would print out a
copy of it for you.

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hoopism
Very cool DIY project.

Without details of price or advantage over existing tech I don't see it as a
fundable/kickstartable effort... but good luck.

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smurlidhar
Hey arey_abhishek I am an investor and have been looking to invest in a
product like this! Let's talk! DM me @sidsays on Twitter.

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mmastrac
Impressive. What platform did you build this on?

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DiabloD3
It'd be nice to do something similar to this on one of those cheap $200-300
40" TVs that go on sale sometimes (the kind that have very bad visual quality,
but could reasonably display large high contrast text, and crude lines), and
just record where a stylus is and make an extra cheap and ghetto pen TV out of
it.

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gotrythis
I want one. Seems like you're saying we can't buy it currently?

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skynetv2
very cool.

practically thinking, why not buy a large touch screen and use some sort of
stylus instead of this white board?

in both cases, the user needs to buy special hardware. so i would think the
costs would be comparable.

genuine question, not diminishing your work

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arey_abhishek
A 85inch DIY whiteboard will cost about 500$ to make while the MSFT surface
hub costs 19,999$.

