1. Computing Surfaces a platform for scalable interactive displays
Alban Rrustemi
Microsoft Research
Cambridge
30-June-2009

2. Overview Information displays Emerging display technologies
Display resolution
Technology limitations
Computing surfaces
A distributed architecture
Implications
Conclusions

3. Information displays
Visual broadcasting of information

4. Information displays
LCD – ubiquitous

5. Information displays
LCD – ubiquitous
Sensing
New applications

6. Emerging display technologies
OLED (Organic LED)
Higher refresh rate (due to faster response times)
Higher contrast (e.g. 1,000,000:1)
Improved colour reproduction
Really thin – (e.g. Sony XEL-1 is just 3mm thick)
Much wider viewing angle (almost 180 degrees)
Lower power consumption
Can be made flexible and/or transparent
Some OLED technologies are soluble

7. Emerging display technologies
Reflective (e-ink)
E-readers
Other devices

8. Emerging display technologies
Flexible displays
More research in supporting technologies
TFT backplanes
Encapsulation materials
Superior manufacturing efficiency

9. Motivation – large interactive displays
A new spectrum of opportunities
Thin, flexible, interactive display surfaces
Scalable?

10. Display resolution Pixel density
TVs ~60PPI
Monitor screens ~100PPI
Smartphones, currently up to 300PPI
Assuming 100PPI => 4k×4k / m2
Current max monitor resolution: 3840 X 2400
WQUXGA
Resolution standards
Are becoming absurd

11. Technology limitations
Current solutions provide limited scalability
Limitations apply to all existing display systems
A problem of communication management!

12. Tiling

13. Computing surfaces
A distributed architecture
Tile structure

14. Computing surfaces – a prototype
3x3 network
Tile components
Display: 17” LCD
Altera DE2 FPGA
Nios II processor
Radix-5 packet switched virtual channel network router

15. Computing surfaces A versatile architecture Implications:
Distributed output
Distributed input
Need for time synchronisation

16. Distributed output Direct manipulation with display content is needed
2D transformations
A centralised approach becomes infeasible
Alternative: distributed 2D transformations

17. Distributing input Gesture recognition
A distributed architecture brings new issues to be resolved
Unistrokes:

18. Time synchronisation Needed for: A distributed algorithm
coordination processes
distributed video playback
interactive games
A distributed algorithm

19. Conclusions and summary
Emerging display technologies will enable FP displays ubiquity
Resolution scalability problems will escalate
Distributed architectures become necessary
Computing surfaces
Distributed 2D transformation of images
Distributed gesture recognition
Time synchronisation
Questions?