SAND release notes

SAND v1.1.2

Released on August 2026

This note describes SAND as it ships today, including features introduced in earlier releases that are still part of the product. You do not need to read back through older notes to know what the current version does.

New Features and Improvements

Signed releases — the SAND executable is signed, so Windows no longer warns that the publisher is unknown when you run a freshly downloaded copy.
Touch, pen and eraser injected as native Windows input — fingers arrive as Windows touch, pens as pen input with pressure and tilt, and fiducial markers as erasers. SAND uses the Windows injection APIs directly, so there are no drivers to install and applications need no modification. Each input type is routed to the Windows pointer type that matches it, which is what makes pens behave as pens in applications that distinguish them.
Several touch sources at once — SAND connects to multiple NetBridge sources over TCP, each with its own address, port and calibration. Events from all sources are batched within a 16 ms window so a gesture crossing two panels stays one gesture.
NetBridge passthrough — several sources can be combined into a single output stream, so software downstream sees one surface rather than a set of panels.
Nine-point calibration with a validation pass — calibration maps physical touch positions to screen coordinates, then asks you to confirm accuracy before going live. Calibration is per source, so each panel in a multi-panel wall is calibrated independently.
Multi-monitor placement — each source maps to a region of the Windows virtual desktop, with per-source translate, rotate and scale for precise positioning across a wall. The target monitor is remembered between runs.
Marker volume control — a fiducial marker on the surface acts as a rotary volume dial: clockwise louder, anticlockwise quieter.
Touch test page — opened from the tray menu, it shows what SAND is receiving and injecting, including pen and eraser diagnostics, so a calibration or routing problem can be seen rather than guessed at.
Tray operation with connection status — SAND runs in the background as a single tray icon showing whether sources are connected. The menu gives settings, calibration, configuration management, the touch test page and log access. There is a Track Log for following events as they arrive.
One executable, no installer — copy it and run it. A second copy will not start if one is already running.
Configuration that suits both fixed and portable use — at startup SAND looks for a system config.txt and imports it; if there is none it creates its own config.json beside the executable. Everything remains editable in the settings dialog, so the same build works for a permanent wall installation and for a laptop connecting to one.

Bug Fixes

Strokes crossing between sources are no longer broken up — a touch handled by one source could cancel a touch belonging to another, which showed up as staccato strokes on a multi-panel wall.
Pens and erasers reach applications as the right pointer type — they were previously injected through the wrong path, so applications that treat pen input differently from touch did not see the distinction.
Startup failures are no longer silent — SAND reports startup errors in a dialog instead of exiting without explanation, resolves its paths relative to its own location rather than the working directory, and writes console output when run from a terminal.
Touch injection errors no longer cascade — a single rejected injection could leave the pipeline producing further errors rather than recovering.
The touch test page renders efficiently — it previously consumed enough resources to affect the behavior it was meant to show.