Slashdot Mirror
Projecting Video On Curved Surfaces
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."
being able to project porn onto boobs! The possibilities are limitless
With the rapid expansion of relatively high-end (5|6|7).1 surround sound stereo equipment in homes that is beginning to be joined by HDTV, could a technology like this bring a new option to table? Could we have something like omnimax theatres in our homes?
You have an ugly corner in your living room, and you're going to "improve" it by projecting some arbitrary image onto it?
Try paintings. Or a ficus.
Just another way to making visual media more exciting to enjoy. Now all we need is for the people producing the media to make something worth watching.
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.
Karma: Negative (Mostly affected by dorm trolling)
Good one guys, you just slashdotted Germany.
It's a Bagel.
But what if your home already is creepy, dark, and with strange noises from the corners?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Nonslashdotted link (in German, though)
Before televisions became the norm, projectors were a common sight around middle-class homes. I remember my father used to show us home movies, Disney cartoons, and science documentaries on a compact Super 8mm projector on idle evenings.
I don't remember the size or even the presence of the "canvas screen" being a big issue. A blank wall did just fine (without any significant loss of picture quality IMHO). If a smaller/larger image was desired, the projector was just moved nearer/away from the wall as necessary. Not such a big deal. Ofcourse the room had to be pitch dark because of the low contrast produced by the projector.
IMHO, this is a solution looking for a problem. I agree the ability to project on curved surfaces might be a bonus, but the pictures did not reveal any significant advantage.
I was more impressed by the "light insensitive" projector that was on /. a few weeks back - it could display images/video effectively in bright light - can't find the link.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
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...
Simpy
... at Siggraph 2003.
There was one demonstration showing projection onto the inside of a translucent sphere, while in the paper "iLamps: Geometrically Aware and self-configuring projectors" Raskar et al showed a system that could also combine the output of several projectors. It was quite impressive.
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.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
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.
When i Moderate something -1 Flamebait, why do i not get another modpoint?
5--1 = 6
So does this mean I can project video onto my girlfriend to make her look like Keira Knightley? :)
oh, and don't worry, I'm just kidding about having a girlfriend...
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.
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.
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.
ayershome.org/users/eric
"...until I discovered the Slashdot workout plan! Sure, I still spend 8 hours a day in a dim server room and all my cardio comes from playing Counter Strike, but with this new Slashdot brand portable non-optimal surface video projection system I now have a full-body projection of vintage Arnold Schwarzenegger on me at all times! Okay, so he's a lot taller than me and that puts his weiner in the middle of my chest, but that *still* gets me more chicks than before! Thanks, Slashdot!"
This is so much looking to be used as a "road runner" practical joke. Leave one of these projecting an "open door" and a "hallway" onto a solid brick wall. For the truly evil, project a "tunnel" complete with "diversion sign" onto the ground beside a road, at a sharp bend...
Sure it won't replace regular screen in places where there is room for them, cinema, meeting room, entertainment room, but it seems perfect for holding a demonstration and not having to take a screen with you and for information/commercial displays.
Eeek more commercials. Bad germans.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
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?
-- Each tock of the Planck clock is a new world and here we are still life. --
Funny... until flat screen televisions came out, 99.99% of all video was "projected" onto curved surfaces.
Doom9 would be extremely cool.
Or Duke Nukem Forever.
Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
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 :(