FibAR: Embedding Optical Fibers in 3D Printed Objects for Active Markers in Dynamic Projection Mapping
This addresses the challenge of robust pose estimation for projection mapping on complex objects, though it is incremental as it builds on existing marker-based approaches.
The paper tackles the problem of accurate dynamic projection mapping on curved surfaces by introducing active markers that emit infrared blinking patterns, achieving a significantly wider working range than previous methods.
This paper presents a novel active marker for dynamic projection mapping (PM) that emits a temporal blinking pattern of infrared (IR) light representing its ID. We used a multi-material three dimensional (3D) printer to fabricate a projection object with optical fibers that can guide IR light from LEDs attached on the bottom of the object. The aperture of an optical fiber is typically very small; thus, it is unnoticeable to human observers under projection and can be placed on a strongly curved part of a projection surface. In addition, the working range of our system can be larger than previous marker-based methods as the blinking patterns can theoretically be recognized by a camera placed at a wide range of distances from markers. We propose an automatic marker placement algorithm to spread multiple active markers over the surface of a projection object such that its pose can be robustly estimated using captured images from arbitrary directions. We also propose an optimization framework for determining the routes of the optical fibers in such a way that collisions of the fibers can be avoided while minimizing the loss of light intensity in the fibers. Through experiments conducted using three fabricated objects containing strongly curved surfaces, we confirmed that the proposed method can achieve accurate dynamic PMs in a significantly wide working range.