Two MIT Media Lab students have combined a Kinect unit, a projector and a silicone screen to create an interactive display that can be pinched and pulled. The screen, called Obake after a mythical Japanese shape-shifting creature, was designed by Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley. The pair demonstrate a prototype unit with an ‘earth’ application that sees a user create mountains and rivers and explore layers beneath terrain.
The unit has been dubbed a 2.5D display and is designed as a move toward true 3D displays instead of the “optical illusions†we have become accustomed to.
Hardware was built with wood, linear actuators, liquid rubber cast into a screen, a Kinect unit and projector. The software was written in openFrameworks.