make virtual applications easily and intuitively accessible

The aim of Peyote is to make virtual applications easily and intuitively accessible - without the user being aware of many of the complex systems and sequences in the background. Based on cognitive research, we developed the "move to click" principle, amongst other things. The mode of operation of this contact-free navigation corresponds to actions in real life: people who want to indicate something point with their finger, people who want someone to come over beckon to them, and if something is in the way, it gets pushed aside.

Many types of interaction are possible using camera tracking (generally, several cameras are installed to record the movements of the observer), infrared and laser sensors.

One of the technologies developed by Peyote is the LIP light curtain.

LIP consists of interlocking modular plates that emit and receive infrared light. Mounted in a frame, a network of invisible light barriers with a grid spacing of 8 mm extends between the plates - less than the width of a finger. If you now penetrate the light curtain with your hand or arm, your position is accurately determined in x and y directions and passed to the computer. The system interrogates the current status 30 times per second. The LIP Framework software then calculates your movement from this data, translates it into mouse and keyboard commands and lets the application correspondingly react to your wishes. The whole thing happens so quickly that you do not notice any of these processes and you have the feeling that you are interacting directly with the application.

Navigation via LIP functions just as well with one hand as with two. Each application that runs on Windows XP, Vista or Windows 7 can also be controlled using LIP at system level. Modular expansion of the plates is possible from 20 x 20 cm to a size of 200 x 800 cm, allowing contract-free operation of virtual applications ranging from the very small to the really huge.

Peyote's expertise comes directly from research: Oliver Irschitz works intensively with university facilities – with the MIT MediaLAb in America, as well as with the Technical University of Vienna and the Hagenberg University of Applied Sciences.