Technology wants to disappear. In computing's early days, the machines swallowed entire rooms. Today, we wear them on our wrists. Soon, they could vanish completely, their smarts embedding directly into our surroundings.

Raj Sodhi has a name for this last scenario. “We call it the ubiquitous user interface,” he says. Sodhi is a co-founder of Lightform, a startup that’s looking to turn full-room projection mapping into living room technology. Projection mapping, also known as projected augmented reality, uses video projectors to cast light onto irregular surfaces like buildings, faces, and, yes, living rooms. For decades, this technology was too expensive and technically complex for the average person to use, but with Lightform, the company's eponymous first product, Sodhi and his partners are automating the entire process. The company plans to begin taking preorders on the device this summer, price TBD.

Lightform

Lightform doesn't look like a computer, but that's what it is. The small box contains a processor and a high-res camera. Hook it up to any projector through an HDMI cable, and the projector will cast a series of grids onto the room, which Lightform's onboard camera uses to assess, in fine detail, the location and dimensions of objects in the space. (Lightform can also scan the room periodically, allowing it to create a new map if anything moves.) The processor converts that information into a 3-D map of surfaces onto which the projector can cast light. “Having a high resolution scan means that every projector pixel has a corresponding real world location,” Sodhi explains.

In other words: Lightform helps you quickly transform almost anything in a room into a screen—provided the projector's light can reach it. You could wrap a movie around your living room wall. Or cast one pattern on a trashcan and another on a chair. In one demo, Lightform technology projects glowing menu items onto a blank blackboard. In another, shifting light illuminates the contours of a cactus. In a more practical example, a glowing raindrop appears on the outside of a planter—a sign that the plant needs watering.

Lightform

Artists have used projection mapping to create immersive environments for decades, but assigning projected pixels to specific locations in space takes some doing. To make a projection map, artists have to manually align pixels with the environment. Every time an object moves, they have to do it again. “The tools people use are very cobbled together,” says Phil Reyneri, Lightform's creative director. They require time and expertise to use.

But Lightform's software automates the mapping process. It handles all the calculations, and can even fine-tune its alignment when objects move. “They’re helping solve the randomness of 3-D space,” says Mark Rolston, a co-founder of Argodesign who’s been exploring projected interfaces for the better part of a decade. “When you think about the wildness of the world, that's a non trivial problem to solve.”

Lightform's technology sets the stage for more complex and immersive forms of interaction. The company aims to develop high-resolution augmented reality projections that track objects and respond to human input in real time. Its ultimate goal: Make projected light so functional and ubiquitous that it replaces screens as we know them in daily life. “Really what we’re doing is bringing computing out into the real world where we live,” Sodhi says.

Lightform

Sodhi and Reyneri claim Lightform's computer vision will one day be good enough to recognize the shape of a Christmas tree and project holiday themed imagery onto it. But Rolston, whose Interactive Light project imagines future use cases for projected augmented reality, says the technology's most compelling applications will be more ordinary. Imagine projecting cutting instructions directly onto a piece of meat. Or a to-do list onto a desk, where it can be swiped away with a wave of your hand. If interfaces lived on our surroundings—not on phone screens, tablets, and TVs—people might put down their devices and start interacting directly with the world around them. “That’s the ultimate dream of computing," Rolston say. "To actually helping us do real things."