Generation of a digital pad on an interactive display device

A method comprises:

• transmitting, by a plurality of drive-sense circuits of an interactive display device, a plurality of signals on a plurality of electrodes of the interactive display device;
• detecting, by a set of drive-sense circuits of the plurality of drive-sense circuits, a change in electrical characteristics of a set of electrodes of the plurality of electrodes;
• interpreting, by a processing module of the interactive display device, the change in the electrical characteristics of the set of electrodes to be caused by a change in capacitance;
• interpreting, by the processing module, the change in capacitance as a digital pad generation indication;
• generating, by the processing module, a digital pad on an interactive surface of the interactive display device, wherein area within the digital pad maps to a larger area on the interactive surface;
• and
• interpreting, by the processing module, changes in the electrical characteristics of one or more sets of electrodes of the plurality of electrodes within the digital pad as functions to manipulate data on the larger area of the interactive display device.