… that uses the concept of shadows to track touch on screens. Proudly engineered and designed in Canada, Baanto’s ShadowSense is entirely different from any other IR technology with over 80 patents to date.
Baanto’s ShadowSense combats commonly known challenges prevalent in the touchscreen market relating specifically to poor touch reliability, low durability, the high total cost of ownership and poor latency that leads to poor user experience. ShadowSense will allow you to create cutting-edge solutions for your customers and users to flourish in various industries such as military and avionics, healthcare, corporate IT and interactive signage.
You might be wondering, “how exactly does it work?” As the name suggests, ShadowSense is all about detecting shadows. The ShadowSense technology is an optical position sensing technology based on accurately detecting an object’s shadow. Not only can it measure the location and position, but ShadowSense also can detect the size, shape, and transparency of the touch. Quite impressively, ShadowSense can detect if a drop of water generated the touch, or it was a pen, stylus or a finger.
Envision a sundial; if you know the height of that sundial and the length of the shadow, with some quick math, you can calculate that angle. Additionally, if there are multiple sundials and they all produce independent angles, you can then calculate the intersection. As the light (or object) is moving, the shadows will also constantly be changing. Baanto’s ShadowSense technology can easily be used to track position in 3D by tracking 2D shadows.
This time envision two pixels side by side, P1 and P2. Half of P1 is covered by a roof or an aperture. When a light source is directly above, all the light will fall on P2, while P1 is only exposed to half the light. As the light begins to move in a clockwise direction, subsequently, P1 will start to get more light. And conversely, as the light moves in a counter-clockwise direction, P1 will get less light. What does this all mean? Well, looking at the ratio of the light on P1 versus P2, you can quickly determine the object’s position that is causing the shadow.
How this works in ShadowSense Touch Technology
With our next-generation IR-based ShadowSense touch technology, what we have is a bunch of ShadowSensors along the top. Baanto’s ShadowSensor is a patented sensor, which operates in the analog domain and detects the angle of a ray of light based on the shadow cast on the sensor. When a finger or an object touches the screen, multiple shadows are cast at different angles. Each of the ShadowSensors calculates the angle of the shadow that falls upon it. Keeping it simple, the intersection of the shadow tells you exactly where the touch is.
But it doesn’t stop there; ShadowSense can also determine the size and shape of the object which can be used to decide if it was a touch, eraser, pen or stylus. Additionally, the darker the touch, the more opaque the object; this allows a straightforward resolve, whether the touch was intentional, accidental, or water drop.
Conclusively, this is why Baanto’s ShadowSense next-generation IR-based technology is entirely different from any other IR technology on the market. These innovations have resulted in products featuring some of the highest performance, most robust, multi-touch capabilities available in the market today.
Interested in learning more about how Baanto ShadowSense can help you? Get in touch with us today