Team 22
Project-Virtual Whiteboard
Concept & Motivation
• Whiteboard is convenient, but you can’t carry it around.
• Writing/Drawing in software is useful, but hard to draw with
mouse
• Why not combine them?
• A portable projected whiteboard.
– Collaborative projected virtual whiteboard
– Link together through internet
– Share work with others around the world
– Projected, can set up using any flat surface
Competitive Analysis
Conventional
Whiteboard
Wii
Web
Virtualboard Whiteboard
Collaborative V-Board
Portability
✖
✔
✔
✔
User Friendliness
✔
✖
✔
✔
Collaboration
✔
✔
✔
✔
Writing Quality
✔
✖
✖
✔
Scalability
✔
✖
✔
✔
Ease of Setup
✖
✖
✔
✔
Requirements
•
•
•
•
•
Trackable light source
– LED device trackable by a smartphone camera
Fixed boundary light source
– LED devices at the four corners to indicate projected board boundary
Smartphone
– Perform image processing from captured video
– Render LED sources
Central server board
– Process rendered output from smartphone into a display
– Connect to the internet and communicate with other Virtual Whiteboards
Projector
– Project information from server board
Each server board creates a local virtual whiteboard.
Server boards connect together through internet.
Technical Specifications
•
Hardware:
–
–
–
–
•
LED pen (act like a marker) CLIENT END
• Red/Purple LED light
• 9V battery, 9V battery cap
• Resistors
Android phone (for image capturing and some image processing) CLIENT END
BeagleBoard-xM (for combining clients’ information) SERVER END
Projector/screen (display output)
Software:
– Android SDK 2.3 (Phones/Clients)
– Ubuntu/C (BeagleBoard-xM)
– USB Driver, libusb
•
Protocols:
–
–
–
USB
Wi-Fi
VGA/DVI video output (from BeagleBoard to projector)
Architecture
LED Pen
(light source)
Light
Phone
(capturing &
processing images)
LED Pen
(light source)
Light
Phone
(capturing &
processing images)
Client End 1
Client End 2
…...
Projector
Server End
USB/Wi-Fi
…...
BeagleBoard
(Construct output)
VGA/DVI
Risk & mitigation plan
Risk
mitigation plan
Communication between phone and
board does not work
No mitigation plan, this is the key
component of our project.
Wi-Fi communication between multiple
boards does not work
Seek alternate communication protocols
through smartphones
Significant lag between user input and
board output
Redistribute workload between the
smartphone and the board.
Smartphone may not be able to pick up
LED information correctly
Write a better algorithm to track the LED
LED is not bright enough to be picked up
Use a laser as the light source.
Concurrency problem between multiple
boards
Introduce more locking, trade speed for
correctness