Thursday, August 28, 2008

Magic mirrors


Interactive mirror subtracting the real background and replacing it with a virtual one

In the frame of a marketing campaign for a travel agency, UbachsWisbrun/JWT, a large communication group in the Netherlands, has asked Bartpproject to develop an interactive mirror.
The installation allows each person passing by the shop window to have a taste of holiday atmosphere, thanks to an interactive experience.

A big LCD screen covered by a way mirror is placed in the shop window: when nobody is in front of it, the screen looks like a normal mirror.
As soon as a person stops in front of the screen, the real background behind him/her is subtracted, and replaced by exotic backgrounds, changing randomly.

The technology behind this installation is complex: the background is constantly changing, so in this context standard background subtraction techniques are not helpful.
We developed a stereo camera system that, by means of a triangulation algorithm, allows the detection of a foreground object.





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