Girton Labs

SenseSurface controls on a laptop screen

SenseSurface is a physical, 3D touch control surface for laptops, musical keyboards, and similar devices. Instead of using a mouse to move a dial on the screen, why not have a real dial you can turn instead?

What happened to traditional knobs for volume controls on computers? Replaced with  + and - controls on the keyboard, not so easy to find in a hurry, or a mouse.

Imagine a control surface with real knobs, sliders, real switches for your favourite music player, video editor  or game. Imagine being able to set the time on a clock by just moving the fingers on the clock face. This is SenseSurface - just place the unique controls on your application - perhaps a music mixer - and you're ready to go!

Applications that would normally use a mouse or Qwerty keyboard can be now controlled with traditional knobs. You can now slide the scroll bar on the right hand side of your computer screen with a real slider button!

Here's SenseSurface in action:

You can use SenseSurface with most laptops that have a USB input.  The sensing knobs have a custom designed  movement sensor that determines their setting within a range of 180 degrees, with over a thousand possible positions. You can remove the magnetic knobs, and immediately place them on a different part of the screen.  These work with a unique sensing device, attached to the rear of the screen, that detects the controls' positions, and their distance from the screen.

The rotary controls are low friction - and, unlike normal touch surfaces, you don't get finger-prints on the screen. Rotaries aren't the only controls available, though: we also have sliders and switches.

You can set a control to be linear or - particularly for audio - logarithmic. The only limit to the the number  of controls on the screen is the size of the screen!. The screen can be at any angle.

SenseSurface should cost less than $100 in production.