Engineers at Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University (both of Pittsburgh, PA, USA) have developed a system called SideBySide that enables animated images from two separate handheld projectors to interact with each other on the same surface.
The handheld projectors are hybrid devices that emit both visible and infrared light, and contain a camera for monitoring the projected images, a ranging sensor, and an inertial measurement unit.
The infrared channel is used to project markers that help the system recognize when the images are moving or overlapping and to communicate between the devices.
The researchers have developed a number of games to demonstrate the capabilities of the system, as well as a 3-D viewer, which allows two users to control and explore a 3-D model together.
A research paper describing the system is available.
A video demonstrating the SideBySide system can be viewed at http://www.disneyresearch.com/research/projects/hci_sidebyside_drp.htm.
-- By Dave Wilson, Senior Editor, Vision Systems Design
