In a large screen computer projection environment, laser pointer can serve as an effective input device that allows direct interaction with the screen. This interactive environment can aid different collaborative decision making processes that involve multiple people.

At the first stage of the project, we developed a system that uses a camera to tracks a single laser point on a large display. The location of the point is subsequently reported a client application and mapped onto a screen coordinate. We also added standard buttons to our handheld laser pointer units to support functionalities of a desktop mouse. Standard Fitts and Tunnel tests were conducted to verify that our laser pointer devices perform as well as a standard desktop mouse.

At the second stage of the project, we focus our effort on creating a new framework that supports concurrent inputs from multiple laser pointer units. Each laser input is uniquely identified by its asynchronous serial bit stream created by modulating the laser light. Our system tracks multiple laser points on a display using intensity discrimination and decode their blinking patterns at real time. Our scalable and flexible implementation allows multiple people to work collaboratively in large screen groupware application.

To demostrate our laser pointer trackign system with large display groupware application, we have developed a collaborative drawing utility that allows multiple people to simutaneously draw lines and shapes on a large display using their laser pointers. Each person paints in an unique color, which is dynamically determined by decoding the lasers' modulated patterns. A screenshot show the system in operation:

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