At Ocupus Lab, we take pride in nurturing emerging talent and fostering innovation in the realm of new media arts. Over the course of Atharva's internship, we witnessed his passion, creativity, and dedication come to life as he worked on his college project.

We’re excited to share his complete report, which offers thoughtful insights and contributes to the ongoing exploration of human-computer interaction. His research delves into innovative technologies, reflecting a distinctive perspective and a keen interest in bridging the gap between humans and digital systems.

Image Courtesy - Dynamic Projection Institute

Part One of his research deep dives into the various use cases of the Mirror-Head.

The Mirror-Head is an innovative motorized mirror system developed by Dynamic Projection Institute—that adds dynamic movement to static projections, enabling seamless, programmable motion across surfaces in real-time. It enhances projection mapping for events, installations, and interactive experiences.

We explored applications like futuristic domestic interfaces, museum displays, library navigation systems, and multi-surface interactive games to test its functionality. While researching, we found its documented use was mostly pre-programmed and there weren’t any real-time case studies. This led us to experiment with real-time interactivity, such as controlling the Mirror-Head using skeletal data from MediaPipe, an open-source computer vision model.

Mirror-Head follows target markers:

The markers are a part of the ReacTIVision framework that enables the tracking of physical markers.

 

ReacTIVision:

Multiple trackers were used to track a moving flat surface, which meant you could project on a specific plane and the image skewing would be automated.

ReacTIVision can track the X-Y-axis and rotational data (each tracker has an individual ID)

An interactive game concept spanning multiple surfaces:

Using the computer vision frameworks, an interactive game was conceptualized which blended real-world elements as game mechanics with the projections.

In conclusion, the Mirror-Head—an innovative technology in development—has the potential to transform projection mapping. During our R&D, we discovered its unique pitch (Y-axis) and roll (X-axis) setup creates a distinct coordinate system, limiting real-time 180-degree movement. Despite this, our short exploration revealed immense possibilities that further programming could unlock.