2016 Volume 18 Issue 2 Pages 95-106
Many capacitive touch panels detect the position and contact area of the users' fingers, and can estimate vertical force by the change of the contact area. However, they cannot estimate the tangential force. We have proposed methods of tangential force input for touch panels using elastic layer on touch panel. This paper reports a development of the device, a new method to distinguish between force input and swipe input, and evaluation of the method. We also evaluated how elastic materials effect on the discrimination accuracy or subjective impression of the users. The results showed that using elastic materials gives good effects on both accuracy of the operation and subjective impression. Furthermore we proposed some applications that utilize the two inputs; swipe and tangential force.
