by Brian Hersh
Spacee is a company whose mission is to create amazing spatial experiences. Spacee specializes in making the physical world digitally interactive through Spatial Augmented Reality. No Phones, No Glasses, No Helmets required. All Spacee projects are designed to be powerful communal
experiences that deliver a deep personal connection. Spacee injects actual intelligence into physical space. Imagine a world where everything is proactive, interactive and reactive. What if a building/store/space could react to a person’s profile and current emotional state? What if media and products merged? Spacee is finalizing a platform allowing anyone to create these experiences without being a programmer.
It all started 3 years ago when Skip Howard, founder of Spacee, attended an event and hacked into a Microsoft Xbox Kinect. Through that experience, Skip was hooked and devoted all his free time to computer vision. He started by creating an in-air gesture interactive restaurant menu (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhxoh3KIsUw). It was a total failure after the restaurant owners decided that customers would be confused with all the hand waving, but it sparked an idea and Skip spent the next two years working on: Create a virtual touchscreen with a camera. After working on the problem and the methods, Skip founded an organization: Computer Visionaries (http://www.meetup.com/Computer-Visionaries/) to meet like minded people that he could bounce ideas off of. Computer Visionaries is now the largest Computer Vision meetup group south of New York City. Because of the relationships and encouragement of the group’s members, Skip was able to create the first technology to make any surface or 3D object digitally interactive with the same camera system that can see the world and react to people. The Spacee Interactive Wall was born and so was Spacee the company. Since this invention, a patent has been issued and several other technologies are patent pending.
Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, Marc Gilpin joined the company to bring advanced UX practices, UX principles and a lot of hard work. Through Marc’s creative guidance, the experience has been taken to the next level making the technology shine.
The first world facing project launched in August of 2015, the Touch Car Experience in partnership with Mercedes-Benz of Plano. Spacee turned a Mercedes into a touchscreen (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWLPG2Wvkvk). The car is installed inside a Mall and any person is able to interact with it. (https://youtu.be/lf9Ppapdy-4)
- A customer will approach the vehicle and is then invited to touch an icon to begin.
- Using the latest in projection mapping techniques, a transition animation is displayed to the customer and the projection enters an active state.
- In the active state, a series of touchable icons are presented, allowing the customer to interact and explore the available information. Once the user places their hand on the icon, the system will register a ‘touch’ and will be able to show the user the correct content in a new animated video.
- Once the content video has ended, the system will return to its active state. The customer will be able to choose other icons.
- Touchable icons are not just limited to one spot on the vehicle or even to the vehicle itself.
- The system achieves virtual touch by using light only. Nothing is installed on the vehicle.
- It has exceeded expectations and has sold Mercedes-Benzes all by itself.
Spacee Capabilities
- Spacee Wall – Computer Vision based digital signage / Interactive wall of real-world items/ Virtual Touch. Make any 2D Surface interactive including glass.
*1 Patent Issued, 1 Patent Pending
- Spacee Virtual Ghosts – a projection on a glass obelisk that allows a user to communicate with an interactive video. The system uses voice recognition and gestures to understand and react to the user.
- Reactive Spatial Awareness – the ability to touch a real world object and have a separate display react to the user’s touch. This is used for marketing and analytics
- The Spacee Overlay: Virtual touch and Spatial AR on any 3D object and surrounding area. The Spacee framework will work on practically anything and in practically any situation.
- Incorporated Tech: Spacee also uses Facial Recognition/detection, Emotional detection, image recognition, demographic detection, in-air gestures, 3D scanning/mapping and mobile integration and other creative technologies.
Spacee is changing the way you interact with everyday objects. We are working on the future and would love your feedback or ideas.
Please see our youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/SpaceeCo and our website at : http://www.spacee.com