Multi-Touch Control Wheel

Grayhill, Inc. announces the release of its latest model in a line of Multi-Touch Human Interface Devices (MT-HIDs) as part of its Instinct™ Touch Technology control system.  The new Series T2 Multi-Touch Control Wheel (MTCW) offers an expanded array of sensor data options, allowing the system to interpret many different finger gestures for machine command and image manipulation. 

 Approximately 4.5” in overall diameter, the T2 is available in standard white, black or custom colors.  The T2 has the functionality of four devices in one unit: 

• Multi-touch touchpad
• Virtual 4 to 256 position rotary encoder (reads finger motion when it runs around a circular groove in the outer circumference of the wheel)
• Virtual 4 position joystick (touching points at North, South, East, West)
• Proximity sensor 

 Multi-touch gestures are becoming a highly popular means of controlling contemporary equipment in areas such as medical imaging, gaming, industrial control, off-highway equipment and more.  However, the T2 MTCW can be used in any application where instinctive and intuitive finger movements can be used to initiate a variety of commands.  Menu search, selection, navigation, image manipulation, and many more commands are executed by a single HID that can easily be integrated into OEM equipment.  This intuitive, easy-to-use interface improves operator productivity.  “Our T2 innovation is consistent with our company mission to deliver intuitive human interface solutions that make life simpler, safer and more efficient” says Brian May, President of Grayhill, Inc. Instinct Touch Technology combines a robust Gesture Recognition Library with the T2 MTCW to track movements on the device’s touch pad, using as many as five fingers at a time.  The data is then read as gestures, which are fed to the user’s application or operating system, allowing the T2 to function in a similar manner as the iPhone®.  

The T2 MTCW is manufactured as a complete sealed package, without any crevices or holes, allowing it to remain very clean in bacteria-ridden environments, such as hospitals.  Dr. Frank Facchini, the Global Director of Medical Affairs at Angio Dynamics states   “control devices without cracks or crevices are needed to reduce or eliminate bacteria on medical equipment.  We are very concerned about hospital-acquired infections, as they are not desired patient outcomes, and they affect our operating costs.  We are looking for every opportunity to mitigate risk with hospital-acquired infections.”  Another key feature of the T2 MTCW is its small height profile, which allows for efficient and clean integration into a control panel.  The robust T2 allows the equipment manufacturer to consolidate many control functions in one HID.  As a result, the manufacturer can eliminate superfluous trackballs, joysticks, touch screens, keypads and other switches, reducing the size and complexity of the control panel, while also reducing costs.  Dr. Faccini further indicates “We need products like the Instinct T2 to modernize our use of imaging equipment.  It will do to imaging what the iPhone did for cell phones.”