Estimating the limitations of single-handed multi-touch input

Abstract

Multi-touch technology has become commonplace in most portable devices, like tablets and mobile phones. This technology has proven to be an interesting platform for games. Several games have been released which are considered technology driven, i.e., they were designed specifically for multi-touch devices. Some of these games require users to provide input using multiple fingers single-handed. In this case, the reachable area of a finger is subject to anatomical constraints. In this thesis, a model is proposed from which we can deduce the area that can be reached by a finger, given the fixed positions of other fingers that are already placed upon the planar surface. This model is created by measuring user input on a multi-touch device and to process these measurements using a variety of regression techniques. In this thesis, an estimation model is fitted in the case that one or two fingers are placed at fixed positions on the screen. These models can estimate the reachable area with reasonable accuracy. We also discuss how this model can be extended to serve the general case, where there are n stationary fingers on the screen.