Obscura CueLight from Gizmodo on Vimeo.
The Obscura CueLight pool table is located at Esquire’s NYC bachelor pad and features a projector with smart sensors that indicate where a pool ball is on the table. When a pool ball rolls over any portion of the table, the projected image shows ripples as if the real-life pool balls were affecting the projected surface image. How much does something like this cost? About $200,000 according to CrunchGear. Yikes.
This is basically a touch screen with a Flash app responding to “touch points” on the table. This can be built (perhaps not coded) for around $1,500- including the infrared camera, high def projector, and infrared LED panels. Touch screen software is available as Open Source code from several sources. I built a regular touch table like the Microsoft surface last week (see links below).
Touchscreen Open Source Software
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=33129297&l=58baf3c1ba&id=49704491
Early iteration of my touch surface showing touch points rendered by the Open Source software:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/photo.php?pid=33129296&id=49704491
In a basic rundown, a camera outfitted to only observe infrared light picks up LEDs reflected on the surface- in this case a pool table. The software is told beforehand to ignore the “background image” which would be the pool table which never moves and to only react to new light reflected differently as in pool balls or the hand of the player. The “new” objects produce points which are sent to a software to uncover the image- which is where creative coding comes in. But the hardware is pocket change.
Cool concept, not worth the money. You could get a cleaver flash coder to write the needed “revealing” code for you for a couple grand. Hey… sounds like I need to put this business plan into action! Haha!
Sorry, I gave a bad link for the second photo:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=33129296&l=a6805af91e&id=49704491
That’s incredible, Chris.