Hi, I’m new to the forum, but I’m very interested in creating an interactive floor project for children in my residency program.  I came across this design, and was going to ask if anyone had created a similiar project.  I was wondering what camera might be best used for this setup, and also what LED setup you would go with. Thanks for any help! It is much appreciated.

Well, you would almost certainly need rear projection so people didn’t get in the way.  Depending on the size of the floor(any estimate?) you could probably use LLP, but you wouldn’t want any of that reflecting up(something that could happen if it was on a floor).  There are several ways you could go about doing this.  If you have a lot of money and time you could make many modules, say, 5’ x 5’, which drop into a frame.  Is there any limit to depth?  Each of these modules would have its own camera, projector, IR source(unless you did a big LLP), and maybe its own computer.

How big is this intended to be?  That is really what I have to know before I can help any more.

Alex

I’m very interested in this type of project too, Hank.  LLP is definitely not a technology that can be pursued until we can drop the laser output to class 1, possibly by leaving the laser on only while the shutter of the camera is open.  Utilizing two projectors you could get rid of most of the ghosting.  I wonder if there’s a way to use mirrors to have the projector’s image coming from two (somewhat closeby) sources instead of just the one lens.

I’ve seen this kind of setup offered in many interactive advertising agencies.
Examples:
http://www.gesturetek.com
http://www.luminvision.co.uk
http://www.displax.com
http://www.eyeclick.com

Looks like everything is mounted on the ceiling (camera, projector, illuminators?), and a screen is placed on the floor.
Here is a diagram: http://www.gesturetek.com/gesturefx/productsolutions_groundfx.php
I don’t know exactly how it works, though. The illumination part is the mystery for me (if there’s IR illumination at all, it doesn’t show in the diagram...).

Should be noticed that Touchlib wouldn’t work for something like this.

If you projected from the ceiling then there would be shadows where people stood, unless you had two projectors.  If you project from the bottom then you just need a really thick floor

I’ve been looking for this software for a year. Just couldn’t find right software for Interactive Floor as http://www.eyeclick.com/ showed.