http://www.iflscience.com/technology/this-spray-can-turn-any-surface-into-a-touch-screen/
This looks interesting. The technology, called Electrick, was developed by scientists from Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania, with the findings published in an open access paper.
The spray consists of an electrically conductive carbon-based material. By applying electrodes to the object, and then measuring the voltage at different points, the position of a person’s finger can be tracked.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Everything’s a Touch Surface with Electrick
http://hackaday.com/2017/05/18/everythings-a-touch-surface-with-electrick/
Touch screens are great, but big touchscreens are expensive and irregular touchscreens are not easy to make at all. Electrik is a method developed by several researchers at Carnegie Mellon University that makes almost any solid object into a touch surface using tomography. The catch is that a conductive coating — in the form of conductive sheets, 3D plastic, or paint — is necessary. You can see a demonstration and many unique applications in the video below. They’ve even made a touch-sensitive brain out of Jell-O and a touchable snowman out of Play-Doh.
The concept is simple. Multiple electrodes surround the surface. The system injects a current using a pair of electrodes and then senses the output at the other terminals. A finger touch will change the output of several of the electrodes. Upon detection, the system will change the injection electrodes and repeat the sensing. By using multiple electrode pairs and tomography techniques, the system can determine the location of touch and even do rough motion tracking like a low-resolution touch pad mouse.
Electrick: Low-Cost Touch Sensing Using Electric Field Tomography
http://yang-zhang.me/research/Electrick/Electrick.html