LittleProjectedPlanet: An Augmented Reality Game for Camera Projector Phones

With the miniaturization of projection technology the integration of tiny projection units, normally referred to as pico projectors, into mobile devices is not longer fiction. Such integrated projectors in mobile devices could make mobile projection ubiquitous within the next few years. These phones soon will have the ability to project large-scale information onto any surfaces in the real world. By doing so the interaction space of the mobile device can be expanded to physical objects in the environment and this can support interaction concepts that are not even possible on modern desktop computers today. In this paper, we explore the possibilities of camera projector phones with a mobile adaption of the Playstation 3(PS3) game LittleBigPlanet. The camera projector unit is used to augment the hand drawings of a user with an overlay displaying physical interaction of virtual objects with the real world. Players can sketch a 2D world on a sheet of paper or use an existing physical configuration of objects and let the physics engine simulate physical procedures in this world to achieve game goals.