Microsoft’s Illumiroom could play a role in the future of the next-generation Xbox, according to a new preview video released ahead of this week’s CHI 2013 event which promises to reveal more technical details about this proof-of-concept system.
IllumiRoom is a wide-angle projector that’s situated on your coffee table, pointed at your big-screen TV. The current prototype has a Kinect strapped to the projector, but the final version will have a Kinect sensor built in. The built-in Kinect uses an automatic calibration process to captures the color and geometry (shape, depth) of the wall behind and furniture around your TV.
Then you hook the IllumiRoom up to your next-generation Xbox (wirelessly), and watch in awe as peripheral projection takes you to new levels of game immersion.
The video goes on to state that the new technology “can extend the gaming content out of your TV, creating a truly immersive experience. Or we can selectively show game elements, like explosions, or make it snow in our living room.”
Microsoft will have had to have got permission from Valve to include their game in the demo, so it suggests they’ve already been shopping the technology around to developers in order to get them interested in supporting it.
Entirely self-calibrating and theoretically working in any room containing the next-generation Xbox, Microsoft realises that, like with Kinect, there may be issues with the technology.
“While there are many unanswered questions regarding peripheral projected illusions, we hope we have demonstrated that they are worth answering.”
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[The Verge]
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