Bringing the Marks on a Whiteboard to Electronic Life

This paper discusses our implementation and experience with a camera-based whiteboard scanner. The ZombieBoard system (so called because it brings to electronic life the marks on a whiteboard) is built into both the physical environment and the information space, while augmenting and linking the two. Computer vision underlies two key technology components. First, image mosaicing is used to obtain high-resolution images of large surfaces using relatively low-resolution cameras. Second, real time activity analysis and line drawing analysis enable a Diagrammatic User Interface whereby commands are issued to the system by drawing on the whiteboard itself. The system has been in routine use at our research center for two years and has demonstrated the value of this approach to linking whiteboards with the electronic document world.