Blackboard
Goal
The goal of this project is to develop software (and possibly hardware) for an
E-paper
blackboard that can be used like a graphic tablet.
The software will allow basic operations like writing, erasing,
drawing curves, moving content, vectorizing and zooming to be processed
locally and advanced operations (e.g. OCR)
and rendering tasks to be provided
through a server. This may include the execution of Java applets locally.
In a second stage the project will probably aim to develop a hardware
specification for a blackboard with an embedded controller that allows to
perform the local operations without an attached computer. Remote
functions may include rendering of OpenOffice,
PDF,
LaTeX,
WikiTeX,
DVI (per dvisvgm?)
GNU TeXmacs and HTML content
to the board. Preformatted content and some content formats (e.g. a subset
of SVG and the dotBook format)
should be readable from a
MMC card
without an attached computer.
The demonstration version runs in a window but the final version
will run in
fullscreen mode.
Status
Early planning, very early Demonstration Applet
There is also a Webstart version that includes Apache Batik.
Roadmap
Stage I
The first stage is
a Java application that can simulate the board on
a desktop computer, using the mouse as the pointing
device and a network connection as the server channel.
Stage II
The second stage will (probably) be
a hardware specification and embedded application using
UClinux
that allows to run the Java application from stage I without
a desktop computer, directly on the controller for the board.
The server channel will most likely be a USB bus.
Suggested sizes for the board could be the
ISO 216
standard sizes A1 (portable) and A0 (mobile). Three A0 sized
modules side by side would have about the size of an average
stationary blackboard.
Features
- When paging through a prepared course the board should be able to page
sideways and allow to begin an arbitrary number of pages for
annotations to each page of a course.
Open Questions
- Should the board support only black & white or is color rendering necessary?
- What type(s) of e-Paper should be used?
- What types allow to add a digitizer (similar to that of a graphic tablet or PDA)?
- What type of digitizer can be used?
- What CPU type would be adequate for the onboard computer?
Code Conventions
Software
Applets
Interesting Web Applets
Blackboard Applets
Related Software
Courseware
Authors