

YC-Backed VizeraLabs Projects New Materials onto Any Surface - CSDude
http://techcrunch.com/2014/08/13/yc-backed-vizeralabs-projects-new-materials-onto-any-surface/

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rustyconover
This is pretty neat from a technical standpoint. I've used MadMapper before
and it was kind of a pain to setup to use to do projection mapping.

First you had to hand map each section of the object you're mapping the
texture onto. This involved having the projector project a pattern and you'd
move and deform various mapping polygons (using a mouse) until you didn't have
any bleed or holes in the projection. If someone moved (or more likely
accidentally bumped) the projector or the target object the polygons had to be
manually adjusted. It seems these guys have automated the process of mapping
the object in physical space, against a pre computed model. They had some
bleed above the top of the chair in their demo video so its not yet perfect.

If you're Ikea and can set this up in the store, for buying a couch, and just
have people click their fabric combination they want to see. I see this being
very useful because they can't show every fabric. Granted Ikea's are huge to
accommodate lots of floor models, but this would still be a draw.

If Ikea had a whole bedroom or living room with projectors all around, you
could try out an entire decorating scheme without having to pull everything
together. I'd take the ferry from Wall Street to Red Hook just to play with it
for a bit.

So rock on VizeraLabs, and start talking to Ikea and BoConcept.

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throwaway7702
It seems like the color of the furniture would have to be white, or nearly
white, in order to project a full range of colors. Do they have a way of
dealing with this?

Presumably the room also has to be dark, which might make it a bit harder to
understand how the furniture will look in context. I'm curious: is there any
projector technology that could make something like this work in brighter
rooms?

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rustyconover
Its really simple technology...

1\. Brighter projectors.

2\. The common technique called projector stacking. You'll see it in large
outdoor events and more sophisticated projected mapped productions such as in
theaters and fashion shows.

These stacks (which may not only be vertical in nature) automatically can
adjust the projection for the offset of each projector so that everything
lines up at the destination.

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throwaway7702
Interesting. Thanks!

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julianpye
Munich-based Extend3D also do something similar with moving objects:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGVCMucrsc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGVCMucrsc)

Their focus however is on using laserprojection for manufacturing.

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HNJohnC
I thought it was something that literally projects a material physically onto
a surface. It's much more disappointingly mundane than that.

Bottom of idea barrel===scraped.

