Multi Touch for Restaurants – A multitouch interaction concept for tables of self-service restaurants.

In a self-service restaurant choosing from a menu results in waiting times at the counter, especially in case of special requests. Individual requests mean individual waiting times at different counters. Additional orders result in additional waiting time and queueing.

To solve these problems an interactive menu will be projected on each table of the restaurant. The guests control the projected menu on the table with their fingers and order their desired drinks and food directly at their table. The menu offers a wide range of additional functionality:

• information about the ingredients of the food such as the origin of the meat, special information for those with dietary concerns such as diabetics and allergy sufferers
• the history of the restaurant and the staff team
• games such as quizzes and memory to fill in the waiting time
• customer feedback such as ‚rate the food’ and ‚recommend the restaurant’
• local transport information such as live timetables and taxi ordering service
• Customer billing

The gestures of known touchscreen devices are assigned to projected multitouch screens. They are selected after the functionality of the concept is defined. Thus, the projected interactive menu can be used with the following gestures: single-touch, swipe, pinch and drag. 
A projector above the table and a Microsoft Kinect to detect individual fingers.