Eigenheim 2.0: Interactive video floor

"GravitySpace" is intended to make it easier to control the networked household

The integration of state-of-the-art computer technology into the user's home environment is as exciting as it is challenging for research. A current project at the Hasso Plattner Institute (HPI) shows that work is being carried out at full speed on "Eigenheim 2.0" in Germany too. http://www.hpi.uni-potsdam.de in Potsdam. Scientists there have developed a prototype of an interactive video floor called "GravitySpace", which can use various sensors to record the weight and movement of users and, based on the data collected, virtually mirrors them. In this way, networked applications and devices in your own household should be much easier to control in the future.

Home 2.0

Flooring 2.0: the GravitySpace in action (Photo: Hasso Plattner Institute)

"GravitySpace is a new method to find out more about the people in a room in order to be able to support them better", explain project leader Dominik Schmidt and Patrick Baudisch, head of the HPI research group "The Human Computer Interaction", the basic idea in an interview with press release. In contrast to traditional camera-based processes, GravitySpace only perceives direct contact with the floor, such as high-resolution footprints or the edging of furniture. "The advantage from a technical point of view is that the perception of the room is equally good everywhere. The advantage from the user's point of view is that the technology takes a back seat. Who would want to live in a room full of cameras?" Ask the researchers.

Innovative system

The core of the GravitySpace prototype is an eight square meter floor piece made of 6,4 centimeter thick glass with a rubber-like, touch-sensitive coating that can be inserted into a standard floor via a correspondingly hollowed-out recess. In order to be able to correctly capture or virtually mirror people who move on it, an infrared camera and a high-resolution video projector are installed in a room below, which register footprints on the surface and transmit video signals to the top of the glass surface.

As soon as a user moves over the touch-sensitive base plate, the infrared camera generates a virtual image of the respective footprint on the basis of the data collected. "The touch sensor is so high-resolution that it can even recognize the footprint, the nature of the material used right up to the user's knees," emphasizes Baudisch. Special software registers exactly where the users are in the room and how they are moving and creates a virtual video image from this.

Longer term plan

"At the moment our focus is clearly on research," is how Schmidt and Baudisch describe the current status of their project, which is also funded by Microsoft Research Cambridge, among others. In the long term, however, the functionality of GravitySpace should also become much more widely available. "We are thinking, for example, of pressure-sensitive carpets that can be installed in normal living spaces," the researchers conclude.

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