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Projecting Video On Curved Surfaces

Posted by timothy on from the angle-dependent dept.

Jochen Bedersdorfer writes "According to golem.de, a research project in the area of Augmented Reality created a technology to project videos onto arbitrary existing screen surfaces, like wallpapered walls or window curtains. ... Quite awesome. Now I can use this ugly corner in my living room effectively."

15 of 177 comments (clear)

  1. curved surfaces? by deathazre · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The problem with projecting an image onto a non-flat surface is you can only get it to look proper from one small area. Anywhere else and it's still distorted.

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  2. Projecting onto clouds by otisg · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Funny, I was just thinking about projecting video onto clouds the other day. You probably couldn't cut code using clouds as your gigant display unit, but you could probably watch some 'herbal movies' on them...

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    Simpy
    1. Re:Projecting onto clouds by dcigary · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Disney has already ventured into projecting videos on uncommon surfaces, such as the water spray screen in Fantasmic and the Grim Grinning Ghosts effect in the Haunted Mansion attraction.

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    2. Re:Projecting onto clouds by TwoPumpChump · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The light wattage/lumens/candela/luminous flux (choose your favourite) required would be enormous.
      It's not impossible; ever notice spotlights illuminating clouds - usually originating from car dealearships and such? Last winter, I noticed a four-spotlight pattern swirling on the underside of some low clouds at night while heading out to the movies. By chance I passed the actual dealership where the spotlights were originating (the light patterns were visible 30 miles away.) The dealership was using some sort of large robotic spotlight platform, about half the size of VW bug, which moved a set of 4 spotlights in a simple spiral-graph like pattern. That set me to thinking, it should be relatively simple to paint text messages on the underside of clouds using a system like that. Granted, you'd have to be able to move those spotlights a bit quicker to give the illusion of text, but it should be in the realm of possibility. Next thing you know... sky spam...
  3. Not quite curved on a cricket ground.... by burnttoy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    At most cricket grounds over here (esp. for internationals like the current Windies tour) sponsor's logos are printed on the pitch (painted on the grass). BUT. The best camera angles for cricket are from a high up camera inthe stands. So the sponsors have to predistort their logos so that it looks good in a long, panoramic, high shot.

    I thought that it was quite clever when I first saw it.

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    Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
    1. Re:Not quite curved on a cricket ground.... by Hungry+Student · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah, like the logos painted in the try areas at rugby games that are painted in such a way to look like they're standing up out of the ground from the broadcast cameras' point of view, clever.

    2. Re:Not quite curved on a cricket ground.... by Simonetta · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Let's not forget the anamorphic skull in Holbein's painting "The Ambassadors" from 500 years ago.

  4. One way to do it: by Janosh · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I haven't RTFA (/.'ed) A norwegian company who specialices in exhibition designs use a procedure to project images on walls in smal spaces, or curved surfaces. They build the room or sphere in a 3d program, and maps the wall with the images they will project. Then place the camera where the projector will be placed, and render. Now you have a video you can project that will fit the wall precicely.

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  5. Disneyland by Therlin · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Disneyland has been playing with something that sounds similar to this.

    If you go here and scroll down halfway to "Sleeping Beauty Castle gets a new look", you can see a couple tests that Disneyland did to "paint" the castle. One painting it gold with a ribbon around it, and another one turning it into a US flag.

  6. Half's been done? ... by unithom · · Score: 2, Interesting
    The first thing that comes to mind is this product:
    http://www.siliconoptix.com/products/index.shtml

    I work at a planetarium and we researched this product as a means to project video onto our dome theater. It can do any number of near-realtime distortions to the video, including hemispherical mapping, or you can use included software to create custom mappings (like corners).

    We concluded that this product was perhaps one generation early but looked promising. Hopefully they sold enough of them to stay afloat and work on v2.0...

    I realize that this only covers the 'geometry' portion and not the 'color' one, but to me it seems like the harder half to tackle. Maybe I don't have enough knowlege of the subject, but given the input from the camera, enough time and filters, solving the color problem seems doable too.

  7. Useful for odd projection angles? by ericzundel · · Score: 3, Interesting

    In our church, we are having issues mounting a projector in a place that is inconspicuous. Most of the inconspicuous places introduce too much of a keystone effect. That means that we will have to fix a (very expensive) projector to project with a special lens to one and only one screen. It might work fine when there is a large group, but if a smaller group wanted to use it in a more intimate setting, everyone will be sitting up front craning their necks. It would be neat if we could just point the projector at any surface and have it automatically correct for whatever distortion happened to be there.

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  8. Re:Well done. by bmf033069 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    On the topic of Slashdotting, I wonder if it is possible to include a link-quality-meter into the header of a story. It would be good to know beforehand that the site was heading downward, as I'm really tired of clicking on links that are never going to come up.

    A more general solution would be to do a ping through to the site when you mouse over a link and show the results as a hover tip. I'm sure that this might already be a Firefox extension already as some very useful ones have been popping up recently.

  9. Lamping still a problem by swb · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I own an LCD RPTV (Sony GW III), and IMHO lamping is still a big problem for projectors, even rear projection systems.

    My TV is pretty good in ambient light, but not great -- I still find myself closing the drapes closest to the TV for daytime watching. You can always jack up the lumens with brighter lights, but this leads to heat problems and lamp replacement costs. I'm already scared for the replacement bulb price for my TV, which is only good for 3 years -- supposedly its a couple of hundred dollars.

    Actual projectors are pretty worthless in any real ambient light in my experience; you need semi-darkness as best.

    And it's not just ambient light, it's image quality. Projection systems usually have pretty crappy black levels. I can live with mine since I'm not that much of an image zealot (no ISF calibration, etc). But you also have uniformity issues, focus, etc.

  10. Predistorted images for people with bad vision by Wargames · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can they create a display that shows a distorted image such that someone with 20/20 vision and no astigmatism would see it blurry but someone with 20/400 and an astigmatism would see it perfectly?

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  11. Perfect for rally games by superswede · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Me and friend has been playing with the idea to project a car racing game onto the wall in a narrow room or a hallway. With some simple algebra you could calibrate the sidewall and corners so that the scenery on the left and the right of the car is projected on the side walls and the road on the wall in front of you. Such scenary will not requiry much resolution since you will not look at it directly, but it will definitely add to your perception. That should quite a simple add-on to existing games since you only have to reserv some of the margin for the sidewalls and the ceiling. Imagine when you see/get a feeling of your oponent next to you... To bad I can't afford a projector though :(