Projector
Projectors are currently undergoing a transformation as they evolve from simple output devices to portable, environment-aware devices with communication ability. An enhanced projector can determine and respond to the geometric context of the display surface, and when used alone or in a cluster can create an ad-hoc selfconfigurable display. Information display is such a prevailing part of everyday life that new and more flexible ways to project data are likely to have significant impact. This paper examines the geometrical issues which arise about properties of the display surface, objects being projected on, position and motion of portable projectors, and co-operation between multiple units. The problems under investigation include sensor integration, calibration, rendering strategies, and appropriate modes for human interaction.
We describe the concept of a display created by heterogeneous enhanced projector units and illustrate its potential with several prototypes and applications. We introduce new techniques for adaptive projection on non-planar surfaces using conformal texture mapping, and for seamless projection from ad-hoc clusters supported by new parametric image transfer methods.
Background & Objective: In the last five years, we have seen a flurry of projector-related publications and some exciting prototypes at graphics, vision and HCI conferences. Advances such as the use of rectangular LCD or DLP matrix have allowed us to overcome the geometric non-linearity of CRTs. This ability to achieve linear projection has been the key. Similar to many other technology, the reduction in cost and size and increase in performance of projectors have further added to the momentum, . Linear projection has enabled many ideas in graphics and vision that are based on parametric approaches (e.g. pin-hole model) to be practically applied to projector-based systems. By treating the projector as the dual of a camera, traditional geometric and photometric techniques can be elegantly adopted for projector display.
However, we believe that projectors are capable of much more. Our goal is to embed projectors as part of an infrastructure as they become mobile and networked. By exploiting elements (that will become) available in a self-contained projector such as the camera module, a tilt sensor and wireless connection, we demonstrate many other modes of operation, corresponding algorithms and potential applications.
Technical Discussion: Technical contribution include a 'Shape-adaptive' projection paradigm, a new image transfer equation for quadric transfers (e.g. for image registration on spherical or cylindrical screens) and a robust global constistency method using local computation.
Publications:
Technology Areas:
Off the Desktop Interaction and Display
Computer Vision
Graphics
Networks
Modification Date: July 7, 2008