Computing Surfaces a platform for scalable interactive displays

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Computing Surfacesa platform for scalable
interactive displays

• Alban Rrustemi

Microsoft Research Cambridge 30-June-2009
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Overview

• Information displays
• Emerging display technologies
• Display resolution
• Technology limitations
• Computing surfaces
• A distributed architecture
• Implications
• Conclusions

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Information displays

• Visual broadcasting of information

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Information displays

• LCD ubiquitous

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Information displays

• LCD ubiquitous
• Sensing
• New applications

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Emerging display technologies

• OLED (Organic LED)
• Higher refresh rate (due to faster response
  times)
• Higher contrast (e.g. 1,000,0001)
• Improved colour reproduction
• Really thin (e.g. Sony XEL-1 is just 3mm thick)
• Much wider viewing angle (almost 180 degrees)
• Lower power consumption
• Can be made flexible and/or transparent
• Some OLED technologies are soluble

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Emerging display technologies

• Reflective (e-ink)
• E-readers
• Other devices

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Emerging display technologies

• Flexible displays
• More research in supporting technologies
• TFT backplanes
• Encapsulation materials
• Superior manufacturing efficiency

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Motivation large interactive displays

• A new spectrum of opportunities
• Thin, flexible, interactive display surfaces
• Scalable?

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Display resolution

• Pixel density
• TVs 60PPI
• Monitor screens 100PPI
• Smartphones, currently up to 300PPI
• Assuming 100PPI gt 4k4k / m2
• Current max monitor resolution 3840 X 2400
• WQUXGA
• Resolution standards
• Are becoming absurd

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Technology limitations

• Current solutions provide limited scalability
• Limitations apply to all existing display systems
• A problem of communication management!

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Tiling
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Computing surfaces

• A distributed architecture
• Tile structure

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Computing surfaces a prototype

• 3x3 network
• Tile components
• Display 17 LCD
• Altera DE2 FPGA
• Nios II processor
• Radix-5 packet switched virtual channel network
  router

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Computing surfaces

• A versatile architecture
• Implications
• Distributed output
• Distributed input
• Need for time synchronisation

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Distributed output

• Direct manipulation with display content is
  needed
• 2D transformations
• A centralised approach becomes infeasible
• Alternative distributed 2D transformations

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Distributing input

• Gesture recognition
• A distributed architecture brings new issues to
  be resolved
• Unistrokes

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Time synchronisation

• Needed for
• coordination processes
• distributed video playback
• interactive games
• A distributed algorithm

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Conclusions and summary

• Emerging display technologies will enable FP
  displays ubiquity
• Resolution scalability problems will escalate
• Distributed architectures become necessary
• Computing surfaces
• Distributed 2D transformation of images
• Distributed gesture recognition
• Time synchronisation
• Questions?