Augmenting Reality with Projected Interactive Displays

This paper examines a steerable projection system, the everywhere displays projector (ED-projector), which transforms surfaces into interactive displays. In an ED-projector, the display image is directed onto a surface by a rotating mirror. Oblique projection distortion is removed by a computer-graphics reverse-distortion process and user interaction (pointing and clicking) is achieved by detecting hand movements with a video camera. The ED-projector is a generic input/output device to be used to provide computer access from different locations of an environment or to overlay interactive graphics on any surface of a space, providing a simpler, more comfortable, and more social solution for augmented reality than goggles. We are investigating applications of ED-projectors that provide computer access in public spaces, facilitate navigation in buildings, localize resources in a physical space, bring computational resources to different areas of an environment, and facilitate the reconfiguration of the workplace.