Shadow Removal in Front Projection Environments Using Object Tracking

When an occluding object, such as a person, stands between a projector and a display surface, a shadow results. We can compensate by positioning multiple projectors so they produce identical and overlapping images and by using a system to locate shadows. Existing systems work by detecting either the shadows or the occluders. Shadow detection methods cannot remove shadows before they appear and are sensitive to video projection, while current occluder detection methods require near infrared cameras and illumination. Instead, we propose using a camera-based object tracker to locate the occluder and an algorithm to model the shadows. The algorithm can adapt to other tracking technologies as well. Despite imprecision in the calibration and tracking process, we found that our system performs effective shadow removal with sufficiently low processing delay for interactive applications with video projection.