Raj Sodhi - A Delightful Future

Making hard things simple. I’ve been creating new products and magical experiences for 12 years and have worked at Microsoft Research and Walt Disney Imagineering doing AR/VR things like Aireal and RoomAlive. I’m a co-founder of Lightform, where we are revolutionizing the way we interact with our physical spaces, using projected AR. Somewhere along the way, I got a PhD @UIUC.

Lightform

[2014-2020]

Lightform’s design tools allows anyone to turn physical objects into interactive displays. With computer vision enabled hardware and software, designers create magical experiences in minutes.

Portfolio

[2008-2014]

RoomAlive

RoomAlive is a proof-of-concept prototype that transforms any room into an immersive, augmented entertainment experience.

Jones, B., Sodhi, R., Murdock, M., Mehra, R., Benko, H., Wilson, A. D., Ofek, E., MacIntyre, B., Shapira, L. RoomAlive: Magical Experiences Enabled by Scalable, Adaptive Projector-Camera Units. UIST, 2014.

Aireal

AIREAL is a tactile-feedback device that delivers effective and expressive tactile sensations in free air, without requiring the user to wear a physical device.

Sodhi, R., Poupyrev, I., Glisson, M., Israr, A.. AIREAL: Interactive Tactile Experiences in Free Air. SIGGRAPH 2013.

BeThere

BeThere is a system designed to explore 3D input for mobile collaborative interactions. With BeThere, you can use 3D gestures and spatial input to help a remote user perform a variety of tasks in their physical environment.

Sodhi, R., Jones, B., Forsyth, D., Bailey, B., Macciocci, G. BeThere: 3D Mobile Collaboration with Spatial Input. CHI 2013.

LightGuide

LightGuide is a system that explores a new approach to gesture guidance where projected light directly on a user’s body can help them learn new movements with high technical precision.

Sodhi, R., Benko, H., Wilson, A. LightGuide: Projected Visualizations for Hand Movement Guidance. CHI 2012.

Build Your World and Play In It

Explore interacting with everyday objects by representing content as interactive surface particles. Users can build their own physical world, map virtual content onto their physical construction and play directly with the surface using a stylus.

Jones, B., Sodhi, R., Campbell, R., Garnett, G., and Bailey, B. Build your world and play in it: Interacting with surface particles on complex objects. ISMAR 2010.

Disney Imagineering

At Disney, I helped design the most advanced projected AR/VR system in the world. The system is still currently used internally at Imagineering and has been deployed in Disney’s theme parks worldwide.

Press

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.

Liz Stinson Wired

Disney Research’s approach – though perhaps less targeted than strapping vibration motors across your torso – does away with the issues of clumsy bodywear, and it could also be used to good effect in media types other than gaming, such as movies and TV shows.

Chris Davis Slashgear