Troubleshooting DiamondTouch Mouse
Copyright 2008 Circle Twelve Inc. All rights reserved.
1> Nothing happens when I touch. Why not?
- You are not in contact with one of the receiver pads
- Your receiver pad has become unplugged from the receiver cable, or the receiver cable has become unplugged from the back of the DiamondTouch table.
- The DiamondTouch USB cable is not plugged in
- DiamondTouch Mouse is not running
- DiamondTouch Mouse is currently muted
- Someone else is touching the table (Windows only lets one person use the mouse at at time, so the first person to touch controls the mouse).
- Perhaps there are noise issues or cross talk between users. Have everyone stop touching for a moment, and then have just one person try touching. The DiamondTouch SDK ships with a visual diagnostic utility (dtdiag.exe) that is handy for "seeing" noise. Use the DTSettings noise threshold tool or the dtdiag utility to adjust noise thresholds as needed.
- The system is not calibrated properly, so your touches are not going where you think they are. Use DTCalibrate or dtdiag to re-calibrate the projected image to the touch table. Always exit and restart DTMouse.exe after changing noise or calibration settings.
- See notes below.
2> I can't get the right/middle mouse button clicking or dragging to work.
- This may take practice. This is an important thing to remember:
- if things aren't working, the first thing to do is to stop touching the table! This will abort any partial gesture in progress.
- Make sure that you tap immediately with the second finger after putting your first finger down. Otherwise it will interpret your touch as a left mouse button.
- Sometimes the right or middle mouse button is properly engaged, but the application does not give any visual feedback until you move your finger.
- Again, if a right or middle button press didn't seem to occur, then first stop touching with both fingers before trying again.
3> Quick taps sometimes don't work.
- You're probably touching too quickly. When touching with 2 fingers, be mindful of whether the 2 fingers are supposed to touch at the same time, or first one and then the other.
4> Why does it sometimes mute, or launch the on-screen keyboard unexpectedly?
- By default, holding down one fist and then tapping 3 times toggles the on-screen keyboard, and 4 times toggles the mute state. If you tap too quickly, or if it doesn't detect the tap count properly then stop touching the table (with your fist, too) before trying again.
5> How can I make it go faster?
- Buy a faster DiamondTouch table. Larger size tables run more slowly than the smaller models. But keep in mind that DiamondTouch tables do not currently sample as fast as a mouse, for example.
- There is also a slight delay when using Precision-Hover mode, as compared to just using one finger. This is so that the system can accurately detect entering and exiting the mode. Otherwise, it is possible that a transient signal from one of the fingers as it touches or stop touching the table may distort the precise location of the mouse cursor.
- Turn off the "Enable helper text overlays" option. This option draws overlays informational messages on the top of the display, which may cause a minor performance delay depending on what applications and video hardware is being used.
6> I just re-calibrated -- why isn't the mouse going exactly where I touch?
- You have to restart DTMouse after re-calibrating or it will continue to use the original calibration.
Many of the parameters of DiamondTouch Mouse are configurable via the config.xml file in the same directory as DTMouse.exe.
Note that DiamondTouch touch tables currently have a USB bug that make them hang if the system goes into Standby. If the touch table or DTMouse.exe is not responding, unplug the DiamondTouch USB cable for a moment.
If all else fails, use the "End Process" button on the Processes tab of the Windows Task Manager to kill an unresponsive DTMouse.exe (it won't appear in the Applications tab, since it runs in the system tray).