Multiple Touch Screen Alignment (02-Nov-2009)

Multiple Touch Screen Alignment

POS (Point of Sale Solutions) with multiple touch screen monitors are becoming pervasive. One challenge of managing a solution with multiple touch monitors is aligning the touch input with the correct display. Touch monitors have two signal cables, one for video and another for touch input. The standard technology does not provide a simple method to correlate the video output signal and the touch input signal at the system unit. Hardware service visits to the POS solution often result in cables being disconnected and not re-connected to the same port. Proposed is a simple application based solution to solve this problem.

Higher function POS solutions have a touch monitor facing the operator and a touch monitor facing the customer. Each uses the touch input for different purposes. The operator is entering purchase item/quantity/etc. information. The customer may be scrolling a live receipt, completing a survey, evaluating upgrade options, etc. The application can automatically figure out which touch input belongs to which video output by simply having unique touch locations for each purpose. In the simplest embodiment, the application log in screen can have a button for the operator to press, while the customer facing monitor has nothing. Confirmation/elimination or erroneous touch checking can be implemented in t...