Microsoft's IllumiRoom is a prototype of where video games may go one day.
The IllumiRoom uses a Kinect sensor and a digital projector to create the illusion (get it?) that your television screen is actually as tall and wide as the wall behind it. “We know what your room looks like,” Brett Jones, a Microsoft Research intern who worked on the project, tells PC World. “We have 3D information and we have color information. We take that and build a game experience around it.”
As the below video shows, the scenery in a first person shooter is projected onto the walls to make it seem more immersive. According to IllumiRoom's research notes, "Peripheral projected illusions can change the appearance of the room, induce apparent motion, extend the field of view, and enable entirely new physical gaming experiences."
However, don't expect any information at about the IllumiRoom at the May 21st event where Microsoft will be unveiling its next Xbox console. At this point it’s purely a research project," Hrvoje Benko, a researcher at Microsoft Research, tells PC World. The researchers showed off the technology at the Computer Human Interaction conference in Paris.
