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Tech

This Mirror Reflects an Augmented Reality

Guaranteed to be the most sci-fi thing you’ve seen today.

The term "sci-fi" gets thrown around a lot in technology journalism; it's a word writers usually employ when they can't think of a better way to describe something totally fucking crazy.

I've been guilty of this brand of lexical laziness before, and I will be again, because this optical combining mirror developed by researchers at the University of Bristol and Lancaster University is totally fucking crazy, and completely sci-fi. Excuse me while I scream into a pillow.

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Planar reflective optical combiners are surfaces that reflect what's in front of them and display what's behind them simultaneously, creating an optical illusion that makes objects appear to be interacting together. The simplest version of an optical combiner is probably a shop window, which allows me to view my own sad face overlaid on a sick jacket I can't afford.

The UK researchers' combiner, described in a paper being presenting at the 2014 Association for Computing Machinery User Interface Software and Technology Symposium, is a little more complex. They used a configurable array of LCD displays, projectors, an Xbox Kinect, and a giant two-way mirror to create the optical illusion. Together, the system constitutes an interactive 3D space that users can explore in any number of ways.

The paper describes several case studies that have made use of the system. The first involved the construction of a mirrored cabinet with a museum artifact placed inside. The combiner reflected the object behind the mirror while projecting visuals like cross-sections and factoids onto the people standing in front of it and reflecting them in turn. As a result, museum goers were able to interact with normally off-limits historical items (although for the purposes of the test, they used replicas) in a 3D virtual space.

"Our prototype allows users to select artifacts by using the reflection of their hands. Several users can mutually see these reflections, which facilitate understanding and discussion," the authors wrote. "We also emulate a little spotlight attached to the user's fingers. This allows users to illuminate parts of the artifacts to see them better."

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The coolest implementation of the technology was in music performance. The researchers lined up several LCD displays behind the mirror in a configuration called a "depth cube," with a musician triggering loops on a pad in front. The combiner captured the performer's actions and displayed them on the LCD screens, which reflected back onto the mirror, along with the performer themselves.

Whenever the performer triggered another loop, another virtual representation of themselves popped up in the virtual space, visualising the musical processes. The performer was then able to manipulate loops in 3D by moving the virtual representations of themselves with their hand. According to its developers, the tool was well received by the musicians they tested it with.

Read: The Mirror That Shows Your Insides

"Musicians we worked with really appreciated the augmentation possibilities offered by the combined space," the researchers wrote. "They were enthusiastic about the additional interaction capabilities created by the mirror. They also believed that it could dramatically improve spectators' perception and understanding of digital performances."

The combiner is very much still in the prototype stage, the researchers noted, and its many possible uses are still being teased out. Even so, the optical combiner is a poignant reminder that, in many ways, the future is already here. And for all its terrifying implications, it still has some wonderfully optimistic and cool-as-all-hell things in store for us.