AIRR Tablet: Floating Display with High-Speed Gesture UI - Interactive Display in 3D Free Space -

Summary

This system integrates high speed high brightness floating display and high-speed 3D gesture recognition. For the aerial image, we use a display technology called AIRR developed by Prof. Yamamoto from Utsunomiya University (moved from Tokushima University) and the 3D High Speed Hand Tracking and Gesture Recognition made it possible to manipulate the aerial image in high speed. The AIRR technology (*Note 1) is an aerial technique which uses retro-reflections sheet which reflects light ray reversely towards the incident direction. Since the image formed by AIRR is a real image in 3D space, it is easier to focus our eyes on the image and motion parallax can also be perceived.

We believe that this will be the next generation of user-friendly 3D display technology. Previous methods to generate aerial image are based on lenses and mirror arrays. By using AIRR, much wider viewing angle is achieved. Furthermore, by using our newly developed high speed LED display, bright image can be formed even under strong room lighting. In addition, the image can be viewed by multiple persons simultaneously.

The high-speed 3D gesture recognition utilize super high-speed stereo cameras, which makes it possible to recognize gesture and track 3D position (500 fps) with extremely small latency. Not only the user can expand and rotate the floating screen, even if we perform extremely fast action such as punching it can still be detected. It can be said that high speed operation on floating image will become the next generation of information environment.

The system we integrated is called "AIRR Tablet" which recognizes hands or any other objects in high-speed beyond human perception. We achieve input and output without any delay, and we show that we can turn the empty space into a large tablet. Unlike conventional computers and smartphones, we can perform operations without any physical collision. It enables high-speed 3D input and output.

It is technology to form a floating image using retro-reflection. Light is reflected reversely towards the incident direction by the retro-reflective sheet. By using retro-reflection sheet, the image formed is similar to that generated by lenses. The system consists of retro-reflection.sheet and half-mirror. No sophisticated calibration of the optical devices is required. It provides large aerial image with wide range of viewpoints. In this demo system, retro-reflective sheet with extremely small beads, allows the generation of floating image which can be seen from a range of 90 degrees.

Fig.1 Structure of AIRR Tablet		Fig.2 The whole system

Fig.3 Floating images from different viewing angles		Fig.4 Drawing application

Movie

Reference

• H. Yamamoto and S. Suyama, "Aerial 3D LED display by use of retroreflective sheeting," Proc. SPIE 8648, 86480Q (2013)
• H. Yamamoto, and S. Suyama, "Aerial Imaging by Retro-Reflection (AIRR)," SID 2013 DIGEST, pp. 895-897 (2013)