Pluribus

Pluribus: A Universal Framework for Scalable Multi-Projector Displays

HP Labs has invented a core enabling technology code-named "Pluribus" that combines the power of multiple inexpensive projectors to quickly and automatically create a scalable “super-projector.”  Analogous to cluster computing, Pluribus could have a significant impact on display markets including gaming, digital cinema, home theater, event projection, collaboration, and visualization.

Developed by Dr. Niranjan Damera-Venkata and Dr. Nelson L. Chang, the Pluribus multi-projector paradigm is:

• Flexible: a single framework to handle tiled, superimposed (w/real-time super-resolution), and even novel hybrid (first in industry) configurations;
• Scalable: scales in number of projectors as well as enables for the first time tradeoffs in brightness, aspect ratio, resolution, and redundancy/fault tolerance;
• Automatic: fast and fully automated calibration, eliminating costly and time consuming per projector manual tweaking that is required today to ensure good image quality for today's multi-projector systems;
• Real-time: achieves this high image quality for high resolution content in real-time (30 fps or higher) using commodity graphics hardware;
• Vivid: produces superb image quality regardless of configuration and without any tweaking of the framework.

Examples

Six 1024x768 projectors in hybrid tiled+superimposed before and after Pluribus. Note how Pluribus automatically handles keystoning and photometric variations. The image width is 2700 pixels wide.

References

• Winner of Best Paper Award:
  Niranjan Damera-Venkata and Nelson L. Chang, "Realizing Super-Resolution with Superimposed Projection," IEEE International Workshop on Projector-Camera Systems (ProCams), 18 June 2007, Minneapolis, MN.  [pdf]
• Chosen by PC Magazine as an "amazing breakthrough" (cover story):
  "Five Ideas That Will Reinvent Modern Computing," Cade Metz and Jamie Bsales, PC Magazine, 17 July 2007.
• Niranjan Damera-Venkata and Nelson L. Chang, "On the Resolution Limits of Superimposed Projection," IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP), San Antonio, TX, 16-19 September 2007, vol. V, pp. 373--376.  [pdf]
• Niranjan Damera-Venkata, Nelson L. Chang, and Jeffrey M. DiCarlo, "A Unified Paradigm for Scalable Multiple Projector-Displays," IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (Proceedings of IEEE Visualization Conference), vol. 13, no. 6, November/December 2007, pp. 1360--1367.  [pdf]
• Invited to present at SIGGRAPH 2009:
  Niranjan Damera-Venkata and Nelson L. Chang, "Display Supersampling," ACM Transactions on Graphics, vol. 28, no. 1, article 9, January 2009 (presented at SIGGRAPH 2009).

Please contact Nelson Chang (nelson.chang @ hp.com) for more information.

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