Multi-touch (MT) Protocol
-------------------------
- Copyright (C) 2009 Henrik Rydberg <rydberg@euromail.se>
+ Copyright (C) 2009-2010 Henrik Rydberg <rydberg@euromail.se>
Introduction
major and minor axis of an ellipse. Finally, the orientation of the oval
shape can be describe with the ORIENTATION parameter.
+For type A devices, further specification of the touch shape is possible
+via ABS_MT_BLOB_ID.
+
The ABS_MT_TOOL_TYPE may be used to specify whether the touching tool is a
-contact or a pen or something else. Devices with more granular information
-may specify general shapes as blobs, i.e., as a sequence of rectangular
-shapes grouped together by an ABS_MT_BLOB_ID. Finally, for the few devices
-that currently support it, the ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID event may be used to
-report contact tracking from hardware [5].
+finger or a pen or something else. Finally, the ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID event
+may be used to track identified contacts over time [5].
+
+In the type B protocol, ABS_MT_TOOL_TYPE and ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID are
+implicitly handled by input core; drivers should instead call
+input_mt_report_slot_state().
Event Semantics
The type of approaching tool. A lot of kernel drivers cannot distinguish
between different tool types, such as a finger or a pen. In such cases, the
event should be omitted. The protocol currently supports MT_TOOL_FINGER and
-MT_TOOL_PEN [2].
+MT_TOOL_PEN [2]. For type B devices, this event is handled by input core;
+drivers should instead use input_mt_report_slot_state().
ABS_MT_BLOB_ID
The BLOB_ID groups several packets together into one arbitrarily shaped
-contact. This is a low-level anonymous grouping for type A devices, and
+contact. The sequence of points forms a polygon which defines the shape of
+the contact. This is a low-level anonymous grouping for type A devices, and
should not be confused with the high-level trackingID [5]. Most type A
devices do not have blob capability, so drivers can safely omit this event.
ABS_MT_TRACKING_ID
The TRACKING_ID identifies an initiated contact throughout its life cycle
-[5]. This event is mandatory for type B devices. The value range of the
-TRACKING_ID should be large enough to ensure unique identification of a
-contact maintained over an extended period of time.
+[5]. The value range of the TRACKING_ID should be large enough to ensure
+unique identification of a contact maintained over an extended period of
+time. For type B devices, this event is handled by input core; drivers
+should instead use input_mt_report_slot_state().
Event Computation
Notes
-----
-In order to stay compatible with existing applications, the data
-reported in a finger packet must not be recognized as single-touch
-events. In addition, all finger data must bypass input filtering,
-since subsequent events of the same type refer to different fingers.
+In order to stay compatible with existing applications, the data reported
+in a finger packet must not be recognized as single-touch events.
+
+For type A devices, all finger data bypasses input filtering, since
+subsequent events of the same type refer to different fingers.
-The first kernel driver to utilize the MT protocol is the bcm5974 driver,
-where examples can be found.
+For example usage of the type A protocol, see the bcm5974 driver. For
+example usage of the type B protocol, see the hid-egalax driver.
[1] With the extension ABS_MT_APPROACH_X and ABS_MT_APPROACH_Y, the
difference between the contact position and the approaching tool position
could be used to derive tilt.
[2] The list can of course be extended.
-[3] Multitouch X driver project: http://bitmath.org/code/multitouch/.
+[3] The mtdev project: http://bitmath.org/code/mtdev/.
[4] See the section on event computation.
[5] See the section on finger tracking.