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Based on Global Imagination’s Magic Planet globe projection system, this cool gadget here called the Sphere is an improvement made by Microsoft, who added multi-touch capability with an infrared camera sharing the same path with the projector, in the base.

Also known as the Microsoft Sphere Surface, the innovative prototype display has an interactive interface with custom optics hardware, computer vision and advanced graphics software, allowing for a 360 degree panoramic view shadowing- and occlusion-free. In addition Microsoft added a custom graphics projection pipeline to remove distortion and to enable a clear display of the projected data, on the curved surface.

With Microsoft Sphere Surface you can browse and manipulate pictures and videos, paint with fingers, and start an omni-directional video-conferencing application with 360 degree panoramic video. Its applicability would be in highly interactive public space environments including museums, lobbies and information booths.
The team working on this prototype is formed by Hrvoje Benko, Andy Wilson, Ravin Balakrishnan and Billy Chen.



Magic Planet from Global Imagination comes in sizes ranging between 41cm to 1.8m, and can be placed on the stand, fixed on the floor or hanged on a wall or ceiling. It can be controlled using a software, HD DVD player, a media server, and synchronized with different multimedia devices and live streaming video sources. Also,the bulb has to be replaced every 1,500-2,000 hours and the globe is made of a durable acrylic easy to clean with water and soap.

The Sphere Surface can be controlled by 2 users via touch, from any position, and they can interact with each other sharing pictures and videos, receiving cool visual feedback produced by the projector located at the base.

You may watch demos of other cool touchscreen high-end devices like Microsoft Surface and the DiamondTouch multi-user system here.