Rendering Microsoft Surface Identity Tags in Java for Android

Question

I want to write an application for Android devices that interacts with the surface and I need to be able to have the Android device display Microsoft Surface Identity Tags. I was able to create a class to draw the Byte Tags using the Byte Tag documentation but all I could find for the Identity Tags was this MSDN documentation and it doesn't include any information about how to draw them. Can anyone point me to some documentation on how to generate Identity Tags programmatically?

Thanks, Casey

Answer 1

First of all, I am not sure if you can do this on the display. The specification tells that the background should be infrared absorbing. I am not sure that the phone screen is infrared absorbing.

1. Infrared-absorbing background

2. One infrared-reflecting circle (0.125-inch radius) in the center of the tag. This circle locates the tag on the Microsoft Surface screen.

3. Three infrared-reflecting circles (0.08-inch radius) located 0.28 inches from the center of the tag in each direction (left, right, and down). These "guide" circles determine the tag orientation.

Reading through the documentation, It seems that there is something called an Identity Tag Printing tool in the SDK that will let you print your own identity tags.

Also you can use the IdentityTagGenerator class in your app to do this programatically. I think you will need to study this class and decompile it to understand how Identity Tags are printed.

Answer 2

I've tried reading tags displayed on my Nexus One with Surface and it doesn't work. The Surface can't see anything on the screen at all. The cameras just don't pick it up. Not sure this would be the same for all phones, but it's likely.