ipProjector: Designs and Techniques for Geometry-Based Interactive Applications Using a Portable Projector

Abstract

We propose an interactive projection system for a virtual studio setup using a single self-contained and portable projection device. The system is named ipProjector, which stands for Interactive Portable Projector. Projection allows special effects of a virtual studio to be seen by live audiences in real time. The portable device supports 360-degree shooting and projecting angles and is easy to be integrated with an existing studio setup. We focus on two fundamental requirements of the system and their implementations. First, nonintrusive projection is performed to ensure that the special effect projections and the environment analysis (for locating the target actors or objects) can be performed simultaneously in real time. Our approach uses Digital Light Processing technology, color wheel analysis, and nearest-neighbor search algorithm. Second, a paired projector-camera system is geometrically calibrated with two alternative setups. The first uses a motion sensor for real-time geometric calibration, and the second uses a beam splitter for scene-independent geometric calibration. Based on a small-scale laboratory setting, experiments were conducted to evaluate the geometric accuracy of the proposed approaches, and an application was built to demonstrate the proposed ipProjector concept. Techniques of special effect rendering are not concerned in this paper.