Friday, February 11, 2011

Augmented Reality Monitor: Make your monitor truly transparent

Do you ever wish you could see through your monitor?  I know at work, as a teacher, I do.  My monitor sits between me and my students, causing me to look over my monitor when I am at my computer (this is a not a big portion of time but is necessary when doing things like taking role).  Wouldn't it be great to be able to see through your monitor.  Again, Lifehacker.com has inspired me to take one of their ideas to the next level.

By Louish Pixel

"Image from Lifehacker.com - Transparent Monitors: A Space Enhancing Solution"

In the post, "Tranparent Monitors: A Space Enhancing Solution" Jason Fitzpatrick talks about how a reader has set up his monitors' desktops or wallpaper with a picture of what is behind them.

I thought about what I could do to use this in my position.  Recalling an ealier post from Lifehacker, "Set a Video as your wallpaper with VLC" I knew I had my solution. I would use software to make my desktop/wallpaper the video feed from a webcam.

Here is the set up: