Virtual Touch Panel Resolutions

ErikJackman

Are there any plans to allow the virtual touch panel, NXV-300, to support a resolution greater then 800x480?

CT-Dallas

As I understand it this is a hardware limitation than a software one. As a virtual panel, we would expect it to be able to do anything we throw at it, but the limiting factor here is hardware performance.

John Nagy

As the doc says, two resolutions, 800x480 and the 430 resolution, about 1/4 of that. It's essentially a touch panel without the glass, not a new any-resolution device.
If you are using it with a web browser or a VNC viewer, you can of course make the visible size on your viewing device any size you want.

The VNC works better in the small resolution as you have 1/4th the data to send to draw the screen.

ErikJackman

I know that's what the docs say. I've had two virtual touch panels on me for most of this year while working on a control room program that manages 4 other classrooms while providing admin controls for the room it's in as well. The system is in it's own little island running off a switch in the rack. We don't have the budget for a large touch panel in the control room nor the physical space for it which is why we where interested in virtual touch panels to begin with. However why limit the hardware to such a low resolution when the target machine running the instance of the virtual touch panel has so much more screen real estate to work with. It really limits the virtual touch panel considerably.

Limited to such a small size forced us to use a lot more pop ups and page flips then I would have preferred. It's to the point where I am having to look into combining two of them to get more useable screen space to make the interface simpler to use.

As the designers of the hardware AMX could have easily worked around the solution or at least offer a higher end model that isn't crippled by such a low resolution. It's as if they are concerned that the virtual touch panel would compete with their larger touch panels. AMX needs to realize that this solution is only really useable in certain situations and wouldn't replace an actual touch panel. The virtual touch panel is much to slow and clunky to consider giving to the professors as the choice of interface for the end users teaching in the classrooms. The fact that the virtual touch panel is limited to such a low resolution works against the few use cases where the virtual touch panel would be very useful. For example back room control at the rack for testing and remote classroom support by our operations group.

I know that it's possible to vnc into the physical touch panels but then you're limited to what the touch panel is running for it's interface. In our use case the people that remote in would need a different, more technical interface then what is presented to the professors who may not be as tech savvy.

I know AMX doesn't like the big C being mentioned here but they have no such limitations on their eControl and you don't even have to buy anything in addition to the control system for it to work. It just feels like a real cop out to limit the virtual touch panel to such a small resolution. Blowing an interface up isn't going to allow me to display more on the screen it just allows me to display a big blurry image.

That's just my opinion while evaluating the hardware for use at our university. I like it and we'll use it but I am disappointed in it.

John Nagy

If R&D budgets are unlimited, so are the solutions. Sadly, this is 2010.
The 300 arose as an opportunity and is an outgrowth of existing technology... it's a panel without glass, plus a web server UI. You'd like something more powerful, and they make that, the TPI4, it can do what you want, but not at the bargain price you want.

PhreaK

@ErikJackman
I hear you. A nice thing to remember is that all the TP's are ultimately just extremely simple IP interfaces. If you've got anyone that know's even the smallest amount of c#, java, objective c, HTML5 (especially the websocket API) or even, god forbid, VB, it's relatively straight forward to roll a native interface for the device your techs have along with a module to sit on your AMX box's and handle the comms at that end.

DHawthorne

I could be wrong, but I always thought the resolutions of the 300 were optimized to be displayed on portable devices ... sort of a first response to using iPhones as an interface, just VNC into the 300. If you need more than that, you can always use a TPI without a monitor. It's just hecka lot more expensive.