HiFi: Hide and Find Digital Contents Associated with Physical Objects via Coded Light


In this paper, we propose HiFi system which enables users to interact with surrounding physical objects. It uses coded light to encode position in an environment. By attaching a tiny light sensor on a user’s mobile device, the user can attach digital info to arbitrary static physical objects or retrieve/modify them anchored to these objects. With this system, a family member may attach a digital maintenance schedule to a fish tank or indoor plants, etc. In a store, a store manager may use such system to attach price tag, discount info and multimedia contents to any products and customers can get the attached info by moving their phone close to the focused product. Similarly, a museum can use this system to provide extra info of displayed items to visitors. Different from computer vision based systems, HiFi does not have requests on texture, bright illumination, etc. Different from regular barcode approaches, HiFi does not require extra physical attachments that may change an object’s native appearance. HiFi has much higher spatial resolution for distinguishing close objects or attached parts of the same object. As HiFi system can track a mobile device at 80 positions per second, it also has much faster response than any above listed system.