1 / 26

Andrew Connell and Chuck Steel

Creating a Home Grown Information Kiosk and Display System on the Cheap. Andrew Connell and Chuck Steel. SIGUCCS Conference Portland, Oregon October 21st, 2008. Outline. History of Info Panel Project at Dickinson College Hardware Design and Evolution Software Design and Evolution

kynan
Download Presentation

Andrew Connell and Chuck Steel

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Creating a Home Grown Information Kiosk and Display System on the Cheap Andrew Connell and Chuck Steel SIGUCCS ConferencePortland, OregonOctober 21st, 2008

  2. Outline • History of Info Panel Project at Dickinson College • Hardware Design and Evolution • Software Design and Evolution • Future Directions • What you need to duplicate our setup • How else could you do it? • Q&A

  3. History • Library looking at installing information display system in building • Andrew and Chuck modifying laptops for fun • First proof of concept device • Prototype display • Installation of first Info Panel in Library • Installation of Touch Panel in Library

  4. Hardware Design and Evolution • Proof of Concept Device • Prototype Device • Production Displays • Touch Panel Display

  5. Hardware Design and Evolution • Proof of Concept Device • Laptop with display removed, flipped around and re-attached • Wireless Connection

  6. Hardware Design and Evolution • Prototype Device • Used an external monitor to increase flexibility of display size

  7. Innards of Prototype

  8. Chuck for Scale

  9. Hardware Design and Evolution • Production Display • Large LCD Display • Sharp Aquos 52" HDTV - $2500 • Re-purposed laptop • Custom wood working - $1400

  10. First Info Panel - Lower Level Info Commons

  11. Info Panel - Side Access

  12. Second Info Panel - Library Main Entrance

  13. Second Info Panel - Library Main Entrance

  14. Hardware Design and Evolution • Touch Panel Display • 19" Planar touch screen - $900 • Re-purposed laptop • Custom wood working - $1675

  15. Touch Panel - Library Main Entrance

  16. Touch In Operation

  17. Software Design and Evolution • Version 1 • Web pages with meta-refresh tags • Version 2 • Used two frames, one to refresh the other • Helped with brief outages, but still displayed 404 errors • Version 3 • Consists of two pieces - the local controller running on the info panel system and the Coldfusion pages on the web server.

  18. Local Controller • The local controller consists of: • a compiled C# application • a configuration file and • several locally stored web pages (error pages) • C# application runs at startup • Checks for network connection, webserver and database availability • Sends ID for that particular info panel to a Coldfusion page which queries database for the URL and duration of the next page to display • Controls Internet Explorer to display the returned URL for the specified duration • Displays the custom error page in the event of a problem

  19. Example of a custom error page

  20. Error Codes

  21. Administration Interface admin page

  22. Allows users to add pages to system Title URL Display Duration Begin Date and Time End Date and Time Page Status Page Priority Supports multiple displays Now supports logging Administration Interface

  23. Future Directions • Recurring slides • Slide Count Statistics • Sliding Priorities • Logging - already implemented in current version

  24. What you need to duplicate our setup • ColdFusion Server to run administration site • Access Database available on server • Computer to act as client • Runs InfoPanelController.exe • Internet Explorer 7 • Display attached to computer

  25. How else could you do it? • Linux Clients? • Javascript and AJAX based controller? • Different server technology (PHP?)

  26. Q&A http://www.dickinson.edu/lis/infopanel/about connella@dickinson.edu steelc@dickinson.edu

More Related