Dynamic Shadow Elimination for Multi-Projector Displays

Abstract

A major problem with interactive displays based on front-projection is that users cast undesirable shadows on the display surface. This situation is only partially-addressed by mounting a single projector at an extreme angle and pre-warping the projected image to undo keystoning distortions. This paper demonstrates that shadows can be muted by redundantly-illuminating the display surface using multiple projectors, all mounted at different locations. However, this technique does not eliminate shadows: multiple projectors create multiple dark regions on the surface (penumbral occlusions). We solve the problem by using cameras to automatically identify occlusions as they occur and dynamically adjust each projector's output so that additional light is projected onto each partially-occluded patch. The system is self-calibrating: relevant homographies relating projectors, cameras and the display surface are recovered by observing the distortions induced in projected calibration patterns. The resulting redundantly-projected display retains the high image quality of a single-projector system while dynamically correcting for all penumbral occlusions. Our initial two-projector implementation operates at 3 Hz.