Charles Nichols of Stanford has designed a “virtual bow” to allow violinists to create more musical expression with computer generated music. It captures the distance of the bow to the bridge, pressure, speed, and, of course, the angle to determine which string is (or strings are) being played. This also translates to the “vertical, rotational, horizontal and longitudinal motion of the bow.” The hopeful result is a more emotional rendering from a computerized performance. Next up, a touch pad for the “neck” so that the full range of notes can be played. More info, including construction details and photos of the virtual bow are available in PDF format on Nichols’ website.