A DIY Augmented Reality Multitouch Coffee Table

While the big players of the tech world work on their next level products that are going to augment our lives into the world of tomorrow, the DIY hacker scenes that have always existed alongside the corporations will continue to create their own versions. Cheaper and more functional, their innovations keep everyone looking forward to the hardware of the future without having to rely on that friend-of-a-friend who works for an R&D department.

In this tradition, Bastian Broecker has created an augmented reality touchscreen coffee table, his version of the Microsoft Surface. You won’t want to put your coffee on it, but in the future coffee will come in tablet form. Maybe.

He achieved this AR table through the crowded marriage of the Kinect, an infrared laser, a PlayStation Eye, and some head tracking software, so when you move, the AR setup does too. The result is a multi-touch Minecraft-like display of building blocks. You can see how he built it in the video above.

@stewart23rd