Rainterior: An Interactive Water Display System

Rain has been the subject of many poems, paintings, and even other kinds of art. There is something about rain that makes humans’ creative juices flow, and that is exactly what happened with a bunch of researchers at the Kakehi Group at Keio University.

They have announced that they are in the process of developing an interactive water and rain drop associated display called Rainterior, which would provide arty audiovisual effects.

The idea started as a way to make gloomy and rainy days more fun, but they ended up developing something really cool. The technology uses ouch-sensing technology using FTIR and when the water falls on the infrared camera, the surface of the projection is disturbed. The infrared camera detects only the raindrops that have fallen. You could also use your fingers to touch the water and create audiovisual effects in the display interface.

It could be used as a game, a water touchpanel or even as a musical instrument. However, the display does not work under sunlight, and works best at night. This is one weakness that the developers are currently trying to overcome. Moreover, the size of the housing is a bit too tall and the display itself is not large enough. The researchers are trying to overcome these problems.

The Rainterior can be used as decorative and interactive features at shopping malls, nightclubs, restaurants or even at plush offices. It definitely would be an added attraction as the raindrops or water droplets would create beautiful audiovisual effects on the display, and the display would also offer interactive features which would make it all the more fun.

You could also take a look at the 360-Degree Fog Display and the Computer Display Telescope, about which we had written sometime back. We had also written about Samsung’s new Folding AMOLED Display, which might be of interest to you.