Concurrent Projector Camera for Gaming

Patently Mobile

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The Chessboard Example

Getting to the heart of the invention, Microsoft provides us with a simple example of a multi-site video communication having two sites share a surface regarding a virtual chessboard that is concurrently displayed to players at two remote locations.

Alternately, a real chessboard can be included in the first of the two locations, with virtual chess pieces being projected onto both the real board, and onto a virtual copy of the chess board at the second location captured by the camera of the Concurrent Projector-Camera at the first location.

For purposes of explanation, assuming the use of a virtual chessboard and pieces in both locations, each player will see a projection of the chess set and the other players interaction with that projected chess set (captured by a local camera associated with each player) without any "visual echo" resulting from either players interaction with the projected chess set. A simple example of this type of use of the Concurrent Projector-Camera is illustrated by FIG. 2 above.

In particular, Microsoft's patent FIG. 2 shows two Concurrent Projector-Cameras (#205 and #210) at separate locations (i.e., "location 1" and "location 2"). Each Concurrent Projector-Camera is projecting a virtual copy of the same chess set (#220 and #225, respectively) into the shared workspace in each of location 1 and location 2.

However, in addition to the projected chess set being projected into each workspace, the Concurrent Projector-Camera 210 in location 2 is also projecting a real-time video of a first user's hand #235 captured by the camera of the Concurrent Projector-Camera #205 from the first user's actual hand as it interacts with the projected chess set in location 1. Similarly, the Concurrent Projector-Camera in location 1 is also projecting a real-time video of a second user's hand #245 captured by the camera of the Concurrent Projector-Camera #210 from the second user's actual hand #240 as it interacts with the projected chess set in location 2.