SBIR Phase I: Illuminate and Interact with Multi-Projector Displays

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will result from the development of an inexpensive way to create projected displays on arbitrary surfaces. This can have a tremendous impact in the ease of deployment and maintenance of low cost high-resolution displays on existing common surfaces (e.g. walls, pillars, objects, whiteboards) as well as prototyped (3D printed, clay, or Lego) models. This opportunity can dove-tail well with the maker-movement that democratizes manufacturing, artistic creation, and design. All of the benefits of the maker movement for society, the economy, commerce, and education will multiply with the introduction of an inexpensive and easy to use technology for creating displays on arbitrary surfaces. New markets that are constrained due to the cost of current solutions will open up for adopting this low-cost technology. Such markets include elementary schools in need of collaborative interactive devices, mobile planetariums, inflatable temporary display structures for independent artists, and others. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project aims to develop a completely automated solution to create seamless imagery using multiple projectors on an arbitrarily shaped surface. Additionally, the project aims to enable multi-user interaction with this multi-projector display on an arbitrarily shaped surface. The company is proposing to develop software that uses a distributed network of computers, projectors, and cameras to respectively drive, project, and observe the projected light on the display in order to automatically compute (a) the position, orientation, and color parameters of the cameras and projectors, and (b) the shape of the display surface. This automated process will operate by the push of a button and take a few seconds to minutes depending on the complexity of the geometry of the display surface. Using this computed information the system will (i) perform real-time image correction to register multiple projected images and thereby create a seamless display that looks as though it is being projected from a single projector; and (b) handle interactions of multiple users with the display appropriately.