Using the ipad as a touch peripheral

[cullam]

Hi gang.

I'm working on an academic research development project, to create a touch screen interface for controlling electronic music. I've just started the ground work on the engine today, and was looking to learn a bit more about some of the lesser used capabilities of the ipad. For the final device, my research team is planning on building our own touch screen. However, that won't be ready for quite some time, and the engine is being developed first. We have an ipad that we were hoping to use for our engine testing.

So the question is, is there a way to use an ipad as a touch input for a pc, or a mac (preferably both). The engine is going to be written in java, and what I need from the ipad is for it to pass in the co-ordinates of all touch points into my code. In a perfect world, I could also send an image to the ipad to display, although I can live without that functionality. If I need to write a special app to the get the ipad to transparently pass its touchpoints, that's fine, although it will slow me down somewhat, as I've never used objective C before. But it seems basic enough that I imagine such a thing exists already.

It is important to note that I am NOT trying to develop the larger project as an ipad app. I simply need a touch screen to work with to develop the engine, while I wait for the custom touch screen to be built. Any suggestions as to how I might do this? Thanks!
-cullam

 

[twerppoet]

It's been done with the apps like Touchpad, so it is at least technically feasible.

 

[cullam]

With TouchPad, you can interface with a computer. I didn't actually check on if it worked for both mac and pc, but I can look into that. However, I would assume that the ipad app is coming up with control info, then passing it to the computer.

What I'm looking to do is really basic. I simply want the ipad to pass its touches directly into a piece of software I'll be writing on the computer (probably in java). All work on what to do with those touches will be done on the computer end. I just need an external multi-touch screen to work with. If I can figure out the API, then it should be an easy ipad app to write. But again, it seems likely that it already exists. Does anyone either know of such an app, or does anyone know where I could find a reference on the api to interface an ipad with code running on a desktop, preferably for java? Thanks.
-cullam