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FreeTop: Finding Free Spots for Projective Augmentation

Jan Riemann, Mohammadreza Khalilbeigi, Martin Schmitz, Sebastian Doeweling, Florian Müller, Max Mühlhäuser
CHI EA 2016
Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
PDF DOI
TL;DR
What we did: We built FreeTop, an approach that automatically identifies suitable areas for projection and touch interaction using depth and color information.
What we found: We found that FreeTop generates a continuous projectability score for each pixel, allowing for flexible and adaptive placement of projected content based on various environmental factors.
Takeaway: Our work significantly enhances the usability of projection technologies in dynamic environments by providing a system that adjusts to surface conditions and user preferences.

Abstract

Augmenting the physical world using projection technologies or head-worn displays becomes increasingly popular in research and commercial applications. However, a common problem is interference between the physical surface’s texture and the projection. In this paper, we present FreeTop, a combined approach to finding areas suitable for projection, which considers multiple aspects influencing projection quality, like visual texture and physical surface structure. FreeTop can be used in stationary and mobile settings for locating free areas in arbitrary physical settings suitable for projective augmentation and touch interaction.