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Hardware Technology

Pico Projector Adapts To New Surfaces, Uses Random Objects As Input Devices 22

Posted by Soulskill
from the for-when-your-display-surfaces-keep-walking-away dept.
jpwilliams writes "This tiny projector can use any surface you have on hand to project an image. Using a webcam, it adapts to the surface, not just by adjusting keystone, but also following that surface and displaying different amounts of information (in certain cases). The guy in the video also uses a coffee mug as an app changer."

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Pico Projector Adapts To New Surfaces, Uses Random Objects As Input Devices More

Pico Projector Adapts To New Surfaces, Uses Random Objects As Input Devices

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  • Pico (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hatta (162192) on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @08:00PM (#39118275) Journal

    Does it work with pine too?

  • Customisable Controls? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Fluffeh (1273756) on Tuesday February 21, 2012 @08:25PM (#39118541)

    Okay, so switching the display by rotating a coffee cup or bottle is nifty, but could get annoying when any movement at a board presentation switches things around. I am much more interested in seeing if the input commands are able to be modified and changed around.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Tumbleweed (3706) *

      Okay, so switching the display by rotating a coffee cup or bottle is nifty, but could get annoying when any movement at a board presentation switches things around. I am much more interested in seeing if the input commands are able to be modified and changed around.

      Dude, just hold down the shift key. geez.

      • Stand on one leg with your feet in the air the whole presentation? You'll only be able to switch slides by tapping your nose if you do that.

    • i think what the mug rotation shows is that they can associate real items with virtual ones. That's more impressive then the (relatively cheap) projector . with a top down projector, they could not only avoid projecting on /you/, but they could associate real sticky notes with virtual ones! I can think of some cool uses of that kind of rapid, free association of information you could do with it, like reading a book cover to prin a summary next to it. It's all about pointing the projector down, not sideways

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Fluffeh (1273756)

        I think what the mug rotation shows is that they can associate real items with virtual ones.

        That's not quite the message that I walked away with. It looked as if rotating a mug (and later a bottle) simply switched the information being displayed. If rotating the mug had rotated a single object within the frame, I think it would be more interesting - such as manipulating common objects to manipulate individual models in a 3D app for example. What I saw seemed to imply that "look for something being rotated" translated to "ALT-TAB" for the environment.

        The idea of a top down projector is interesting,

  • I can't really find the technology behind the trick in the paper. It does describe that a Kinect is used. That sounds a lot more plausible as the source for figuring out where to project, in what shape and for detecting object movement as a controller than a plain web cam. Could it be that the WebCam is only used to record contrast and color balance so they can project on "printed" surfaces?
  • I'd much rather be able to predict where the image is going to end up. Maybe make it so you can project onto arbitrary objects?

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