Deformation Lamps: A Projection Technique to Make a Static Object Dynamic

Abstract: Light projection is a powerful technique to edit appearances of objects in the real world. Based on pixel-wise modification of light transport, previous techniques have successfully modified static surface properties such as surface color, dynamic range, gloss and shading. Here, we propose an alternative light projection technique that adds a variety of illusory, yet realistic distortions to a wide range of static 2D and 3D projection targets. The key idea of our technique, named Deformation Lamps, is to project only dynamic luminance information, which effectively activates the motion (and shape) processing in the visual system, while preserving the color and texture of the original object. Although the projected dynamic luminance information is spatially inconsistent with the color and texture of the target object, the observer's brain automatically com- bines these sensory signals in such a way as to correct the inconsistency across visual attributes. We conducted a psychophysical experiment to investigate the characteristics of the inconsistency correction, and found that the correction was dependent critically on the retinal magnitude of inconsistency. Another experiment showed that perceived magnitude of image deformation by our techniques was underestimated. The results ruled out the possibility that the effect by our technique stemmed simply from the physical change of object appearance by light projection. Finally, we discuss how our techniques can make the observers perceive a vivid and natural movement, deformation, or oscillation of a variety of static objects, including drawn pictures, printed photographs, sculptures with 3D shading, objects with natural textures including human bodies.