Tracking of multiple planar projection boards for interactive mixed-reality applications

The case of mixed-reality projector-camera systems is considered and, in particular, those which employ hand-held boards as interactive displays. This work focuses upon the accurate, robust, and timely detection and pose estimation of such boards, to achieve high-quality augmentation and interaction. The proposed approach operates a camera in the near infrared spectrum to filter out the optical projection from the sensory input. However, the monochromaticity of input restricts the use of color for the detection of boards. In this context, two methods are proposed. The first regards the pose estimation of boards which, being computationally demanding and frequently used by the system, is highly parallelized. The second uses this pose estimation method to detect and track boards, being efficient in the use of computational resources so that accurate results are provided in real-time. Accurate pose estimation facilitates touch detection upon designated areas on the boards and high-quality projection of visual content upon boards. An implementation of the proposed approach is extensively and quantitatively evaluated, as to its accuracy and efficiency. This evaluation, along with usability and pilot application investigations, indicate the suitability of the proposed approach for use in interactive, mixed-reality applications.