Slashdot Mirror
Project an Interactive Game on Your Floor or Wall (Video)
Lumo is an interactive projector. You can use it to bore people with PowerPoint slides or you can use it as a game machine. It has a built-in (low res) camera that can detect a kick (as shown at the beginning of the video) and make a (virtual) ball move as a result of that action. 'But,' you ask, 'do they have an Indiegogo campaign?' Not yet. It launches on March 23.
The Lumo projector was originally designed for commercial use at children's museums and as a trade show attention-getter -- at $10,000 a pop. The consumer version is expected to cost less than $500, according to Lumo CEO (and Slashdot interviewee) Meghan Athavale. And while she doesn't talk much about it in the interview, if you already have a computer, a projector, and a Kinect or webcam, you can buy the a stripped-down version of the company's 'interactive-floor-wall projection' software for $39, plus games or customizable game templates.
The Lumo projector was originally designed for commercial use at children's museums and as a trade show attention-getter -- at $10,000 a pop. The consumer version is expected to cost less than $500, according to Lumo CEO (and Slashdot interviewee) Meghan Athavale. And while she doesn't talk much about it in the interview, if you already have a computer, a projector, and a Kinect or webcam, you can buy the a stripped-down version of the company's 'interactive-floor-wall projection' software for $39, plus games or customizable game templates.
They had one of these (not necessarily this vendor) on the floor of one of the wings of the Burlington Mall in Massachusetts 5+ years ago (it may still be there). It's a fun toy, but it has little practical applications beyond games and promotions. There's no reason this couldn't be on a wall or table though.
Restaurants: I see this technology as the future of table service at restaurants; consider your white tablecloth as your touchscreen, capable of breaking down into one screen per patron (the camera notes where people are seated) or one big screen for everybody to watch a video presentation. This becomes your menu. The camera can also note when you are running out of drink, when it's appropriate to bring out your next course, and when to clear your plates, which allows the wait staff to better optimize their time. Perhaps the bussers are even drones.
Gaming: A ceiling-mounted camera and projector are far cheaper than a coffee-table sized tablet, and you don't have to worry about spilling drinks on your tabletop destroying your system. This can replace board game equipment and other tabletop games and activities. Giant jigsaw puzzles and multi-day wargames can be saved and cleared to make room for something else, then resumed on demand.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Problems with this story:
1. They haven't even stated how much they want to collect
2. They claim to have done over 4,000 installations of an earlier variant:
"Lumo's founders come from game development, engineering, and interactive interfaces. In 2011, the company started selling an interactive projection display platform (Po-motion.com) that includes a complete creative suite and a remote content management system. This system has been used in over 4000 commercial and museum displays worldwide by clients such as Google, Adidas, Coca-Cola and Air New Zealand."
Notice how misleading that statement is? A different platform, owned by someone else, has sold over 4,000 units. They themselves may have sold a few of them, but this in NO way shows that they have the ability to produce such a system themselves.
3. I smell legal problems for what is clearly a knock-off.
These crowd-funding stories are becoming more of a joke every day.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
It wants its projector/webcam games back.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
The project is interesting and ambitious. However it's still a projector, and a projector with motion sensing capabilities at that. This is almost certainly going to put it in to the $1000+ price range. You can't change the world if nobody can afford your product.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Because you'll be extremely disappointed by any $50 projector. You can't get a projector worth having at that price point. Hell, reasonable projectors don't even start until around the $300 mark.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Your assumption is wrong. Timothy made the video. I just edited and posted it. And he chooses video subjects based on what he finds interesting and doesn't get paid to make them.
FYI, if you ever see a piece of sponsored content on Slashdot, it will say 'sponsored content' or 'advertisement' or will otherwise be easily distinguishable from editorial content.
Why should everything on Slashdot be negative? Being positive (or at least neutral) about something doesn't necessarily mean someone got paid.
I wouldn't pay $500 for this thing any more than you would. If anything, I might look at their $39 (proprietary) software and try it with a computer and webcam. And probably not even that.
Project an Interactive Game on Your Floor or Wall (Video)
And here's me playing non-interactive games like a chump.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I've always wanted something like this projector + camera shining down on a pool table.
It could record all of the shots, and easily show you a prior table position so you could "un-do" a shot as well as re-play slow motion video of a "break" or other action. Based on varying games, it could count and keep score (cutthroat, multiple iterations of "4 ball run", etc etc) by just displaying the scores somewhere on the table.
For interactivity, it could "visualize" the line of an intended ball strike by viewing your cue stick and anticipating the output (it wouldn't be perfect with only a top-view camera, but good enough). Once you find your desired "line" a voice or other gesture control could "freeze" the drawn lines, allowing you to more easily aim.
Fun stuff, and I didn't even watch the video (:
works fine on my machine
Nothing really if you want to buy a projector, Kinect, computer and install/configure/write your own software. I don't know a lot of four year olds doing that these days.
The statement that the projector "plays" motion reactive games seems misleading, but for a typical consumer audience I can understand the simplification.
Meg, out of curiousity, other than not needing a stand-alone computer and video input, how does your product differ from Mandala, which was introduced by Very Vivid back in 1988, for the Amiga? It could use any video source (usually a projector aimed at a wall, but most any video output device would suffice) along with a video input from a camera to allow interacting with on screen content, and was quite popular with museums and other entities for setting up interactive displays in the early '90s, prior to Commodore's demise. Do you have anyone working on your team that has ever dealt with a Mandala, or even old enough to remember one?
At a hardware engineering level, has more been done than reducing part count, in effect? The Mandala was purely 2D, for example, having only the ability to determine motion on an X/Y basis parallel to the video display. Have you added another axis since you are supporting the 360 Kinect, perhaps, or could you consider that for your next generation? Additionally, would the use of 1080p or higher resolution video cameras make supporting resolutions higher than 1024x768 feasible in the future, or give more precise movement tracking? What is the granularity of movement tracking currently?
On a software level, how easy is it describe interactive objects and the interactions that can be performed along with the results? What would it take for Minecraft, for example, to be ported so that no controller was needed, just a lot of movement (my nephew REALLY needs some exercise!)? Or is it only really suited for new applications built from the ground up using your Po-Motion tools?
That's a lot of questions! I'll try to answer them here but feel free to email me at meg@lumoplay.com if you want more info. For some reason the site's not letting me log in.
"The statement that the projector "plays" motion reactive games seems misleading, but for a typical consumer audience I can understand the simplification."
Yeah, I'm not sure how to describe this. There's an android processor inside and we built a special game player that reads motion data to create motion reactive games kids can play by kicking projected stuff, junping on hotspot areas etc... we have a few games that track toys also - that stuff still needs work but it's cool so far.
"Meg, out of curiousity, other than not needing a stand-alone computer and video input, how does your product differ from Mandala, which was introduced by Very Vivid back in 1988, for the Amiga? It could use any video source (usually a projector aimed at a wall, but most any video output device would suffice) along with a video input from a camera to allow interacting with on screen content, and was quite popular with museums and other entities for setting up interactive displays in the early '90s, prior to Commodore's demise."
Mostly this is about clever game design. The experiences we make are meant to intuitively encourage motion and are all designed for the floor. Kids play by moving on top of a projected area and they look at each other instead of a screen. The game environment becomes part of the real world. The installations in commercial environments and museums were our inspiration when we started.
"Do you have anyone working on your team that has ever dealt with a Mandala, or even old enough to remember one?"
I'm old enough (barely). My background is in cell animation, and I graduated from college in '97. My first computer animation tool was a toaster. I didn't actually build my own system until 2008. The first one used a logitech USB camera.
"At a hardware engineering level, has more been done than reducing part count, in effect? The Mandala was purely 2D, for example, having only the ability to determine motion on an X/Y basis parallel to the video display. Have you added another axis since you are supporting the 360 Kinect, perhaps, or could you consider that for your next generation?"
Po-motion uses another axis for some games to do depth sensing. But Lumo is super simple - mostly because it had to be affordable. So the camera system is crazy simple and efficient. It doesn't support the Kinect. It's all designed around a simple IR light sensor (not a laser, just a wash without point cloud data and a low pixel optic camera with an RGB filter).
"Additionally, would the use of 1080p or higher resolution video cameras make supporting resolutions higher than 1024x768 feasible in the future, or give more precise movement tracking? What is the granularity of movement tracking currently?"
I don't know if I can do this justice in a comment. The short answer is that the higher the resolution of the camera feed, the higher the processing required to avoid latency. So yes, we could detect more finite details and movement, but the tradeoff would be a bigger processor and a higher cost for the unit. That's one reason we design all the games for large motor movements. The other is because there are already systems like touchscreens that let you control things with tiny, detailed motion. We want kids to move more.
"On a software level, how easy is it describe interactive objects and the interactions that can be performed along with the results? What would it take for Minecraft, for example, to be ported so that no controller was needed, just a lot of movement (my nephew REALLY needs some exercise!)?"
This is my FAVORITE question. I love Minecraft too (I even have PE so I can play it when I travel). I've spent a ton of time trying to figure out a way to integrate creations from the Minecraft universe into Lumo. It's tough - things like click and drag won't work yet. We are working on presence detec
There is some confusion in the article about Po-motion - Lumo is a different application, built in Unity and designed to run on a small processor. We used what we learned developing Po-motion (which is built in AIR) but it is a completely different platform. We'll be providing a styleguide and SDK for Unity developers, and we're planning to support them as they come up with new ideas for the system. The main challenge was making a turnkey unit that parents could afford. I'm excited to see what other people come up with for it. :)
Yes, that is my fault. I read the Po-motion page first and came to the wrong conclusion that your Lumo system was based on Po-motion. I realized my mistake after hitting send, of course. But, as I understand it, you have reduced the hardware of Mandala, an Amiga, a projector, and a camera down to one thing to plug into the wall that provides all of those features and probably a similar level of performance to what was available in 1988 (depending on CPU choice, ARM has come a long way since the 68030 was released). I would love it if one of the Mandala creators were around to pipe up (last I left them they were following the Grateful Dead around the world and living out of Hare Krishna temple/hostels). IIRC, they were also from Canada, though I don't remember which city.
BTW, you should probably update your Lumo page to indicate that you are using an ARM CPU, or perhaps "an Android-compatible CPU", rather than an "Android CPU". As for cost, running Android on an Intel NUC would certainly increase your cost, but could also increase your performance by enough to allow orders of magnitude more challenging applications, maybe for the Hammacher Schlemmer version :P.