There hasn’t been much innovation in the world of juggling since the chainsaw was invented. But thanks to the work of Hiroaki Yamaguchi and Hideki Koike, who created a real-time tracking and projection system that can bring balls to life, busking is about to get interesting again.
The motion capture technology used for the system relies on six cameras running at 250 frames per second to calculate the 3D position of multiple balls at once. A projector then uses that data to generate and position overlays so each ball looks like it’s a living planet, an animated face, or whatever you need them to be.
With a strong enough projector it could even facilitate on-ball ads for games like baseball and basketball since that’s where all eyes are glued during a match, but let’s hope it doesn’t come to that anytime soon. [DigInfo]