Bonfire: A Nomadic System for Hybrid Laptop-Tabletop Interaction

The authors present Bonfire, a self-contained mobile computing system that uses two laptop-mounted laser micro-projectors to project an interactive display space to either side of a laptop keyboard. Coupled with each micro-projector is a camera to enable hand gesture tracking, object recognition, and information transfer within the projected space. Thus, Bonfire is neither a pure laptop system nor a pure tabletop system, but an integration of the two into one new nomadic computing platform. This integration: enables observing the periphery and responding appropriately, e.g., to the casual placement of objects within its field of view, enables integration between physical and digital objects via computer vision.