Projector compensation seeks to correct geometric and photometric distortions that occur when images are projected onto nonplanar or textured surfaces. However, most existing methods are highly setup-dependent, requiring fine-tuning or retraining whenever the surface, lighting, or projector-camera pose changes. Progress has been limited by two key challenges: (1) the absence of large, diverse training datasets and (2) existing geometric correction models are typically constrained by specific spatial setups; without further retraining or fine-tuning, they often fail to generalize directly to novel geometric configurations. We introduce SIComp, the first Setup-Independent framework for full projector Compensation, capable of generalizing to unseen setups without fine-tuning or retraining. To enable this, we construct a large-scale real-world dataset spanning 277 distinct projector-camera setups. SIComp adopts a co-adaptive design that decouples geometry and photometry: A carefully tailored optical flow module performs online geometric correction, while a novel photometric network handles photometric compensation. To further enhance robustness under varying illumination, we integrate intensity-varying surface priors into the network design. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SIComp consistently produces high-quality compensation across diverse unseen setups, substantially outperforming existing methods in terms of generalization ability and establishing the first generalizable solution to projector compensation. The code and dataset are available on our project page: https://hai-bo-li.github.io/SIComp/
Figures & tables
Table 1: Comparison of full projector compensation methods. SI indicates Setup-Independent methods ( ).
Figure 1: SIComp pipeline. (a) Data preparation phase, including the acquisition of surface images and various captured projection images collected under diverse setups, followed by masking and cropping. (b) SIComp fine-tuning pipeline. It comprises a flow estimator module for geometric correction, which is pre-trained on the Sintel [ 6 ] dataset. A pre-trained IVPCNet performs photometric compensation, inferring the projector input image based on optical flow warped images, whose pre-training process is detailed in Fig. 2 . (c) Real compensation application, where the trained SIComp takes a desired image x′ and the optical flow (pre-estimated from an initial reference projection) as input to infer the compensation image, which is then physically projected and captured by a camera to approximate the desired image x′ . The symbol T denotes the warping operation applied using the estimated optical flow.
Figure 2: Pre-training pipeline for IVPCNet. IVPCNet, a siamese U-Net architecture, is pre-trained using two different domains. The first is the camera sampling domain (solid blue border). It takes a camera-captured image warped by structured light and the corresponding surface image as input, predicting an output x^ . The second is the compensation domain (solid green border), where the network learns to predict a compensation image. It uses the projector input image x and the same warped surface image to predict x^∗ , with the loss computed against a target compensation image x∗ . This target image x∗ is derived for the specific hardware setup using Nayar’s iterative refinement method [ 46 ] . This pre-training process yields the IVPCNet model for subsequent fine-tuning within the SIComp framework (see Fig. 1 ). The blue, pink, and orange lines denote the skip connections at stages s1, s2, and s3, respectively.
Figure 3: Projector and camera field of view (FOV). In the projector FOV mask, the white region represents the projector’s FOV. The camera’s FOV encompasses the broader scene, represented by the blue region, and the optimal viewing area is highlighted by the red boundary. Due to the projector’s FOV and potential geometric distortions of the surface, an affine transformation is applied to the projector input image, resulting in the ideal visualization after accounting for the projector’s FOV limitations and the surface geometric distortions, i.e., desired ground truth (GT).
Figure 4: Intensity-varying surface priors. (Top) Uniform gray images of varying intensities (0, 64, 128, 191, and 255) are projected onto a surface. (Bottom) The corresponding camera captures reveal the surface’s distinct reflectance properties under various projection intensities. This set of captured images provides intensity-varying surface priors, enabling SIComp to more effectively learn complex surface properties.
Figure 5: Qualitative results of real compensation experiments. Rows 1–2 (Set A) : same ProCams devices, unseen setups. Rows 3–4 (Set B) : novel ProCams devices, unseen setups. For each pair of rows: The top row displays the surface, uncompensated image, desired ground truth, and setup-dependent results (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++); the bottom row shows setup-independent results (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, and SIComp with 1, 3, and 5 surfaces). Red boxes indicate magnified insets for comparison. See more results in the Supplementary Material.
Table 2: Quantitative comparison of real projector compensation methods on Set A (same ProCams devices, unseen setups, averaged over 8 setups) and Set B (novel ProCams devices, unseen setups, averaged over 5 setups). SI indicates Setup-Independent methods ( ). The best results within each category are bolded .
Table 3: Quantitative comparison of surrogate projector compensation methods on Set A (same ProCams devices, unseen setups, averaged over 8 setups). SI indicates Setup-Independent methods ( ). The best results within each category are bolded . See qualitative comparisons in the Supplementary Material.
Table 4: Efficiency comparison. SI indicates Setup-Independent methods ( ). BS indicates the batch size. Per Setup denotes the re-training duration required for each new setup. Peak Mem. denotes the maximum GPU memory during training or fine-tuning. Best results in each category are bolded . See the Supplementary Material for a more detailed efficiency comparison.
Figure 6: Real compensation of SIComp on sharp (top) and wavy (bottom) surfaces, demonstrating improved quality as #surf increases from 1 to 5.
Figure 7: View-dependent limitation of SIComp. Our proposed SIComp method is restricted to a single viewpoint. The last two columns display the projected compensations on the surface, captured from two different perspectives: the canonical view (using the same DSLR camera as in columns 1-3) and a side view (using a cell phone camera). The significant degradation in fidelity from the side view clearly demonstrates that view changes compromise compensation quality.
Appendix figures & tables9 assets
Supplementary material from the paper’s appendix.
Appendix
Loss
PSNR ↑
RMSE ↓
SSIM ↑
Δ E ↓
LPIPS ↓
FID ↓
ℓ1 +SSIM
22.3325
0.0774
0.7222
6.5113
0.2909
48.4108
ℓ1 +SSIM+ Δ E
22.2989
0.0777
0.7190
6.3698
0.2896
47.8011
ℓ1 +SSIM+LPIPS
22.2762
0.0779
0.7159
6.3944
0.2836
46.3983
ℓ1 +SSIM+ Δ E+LPIPS
22.2950
0.0778
0.7158
6.3852
0.2826
45.7490
Appendix
Table S1 : Comparison of different loss functions. Results are averaged over the 8 setups in Set A.
Table S2 : Efficiency and resource consumption statistics. All input and output image resolutions are (600×600) . We provide a comparative analysis between setup-dependent (SD) models and setup-independent (SI) models. SI methods are marked with (\resizebox{}{403045}{\par\par\par\hbox to1127.22pt{\vbox to1178.42pt{\pgfpicture\makeatletter\hbox{\hskip-159.2006pt\lower-1488.00568pt\hbox to0.0pt{\lxSVG@begingroup@{_scopebegin=1} \lxSVG@begingroup@{stroke=#000000} \lxSVG@begingroup@{fill=#000000} \lxSVG@setlinewidth{\the\pgflinewidth}\lxSVG@begingroup@{stroke-width=0.4pt} \lx@inpgf@ignorespaces\nullfont\hbox to0.0pt{\lxSVG@begingroup@{_scopebegin=1} {\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces{\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces{{\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}}{{\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}} \lxSVG@begingroup@{_scopebegin=1} {{}}\lxSVG@eorulefalse\lxSVG@begingroup@{fill-rule=nonzero} \lx@inpgf@ignorespaces {}{{}}{} {}{} {}{} {}{} {}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{} {}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{} {}{} {}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{{}}{}{}{} {}{} {\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}\lxSVG@begingroup@{_scopebegin=1} \lxSVG@begingroup@{stroke=#000000} \lxSVG@begingroup@{fill=#000000} \lxSVG@setlinewidth{\the\pgflinewidth}\lxSVG@begingroup@{stroke-width=1.6pt} \lx@inpgf@ignorespaces{}\lxSVG@fillstroke\lxSVG@drawpath@unclipped{M 1778.89 -466.03 L 1568.57 -715.1 L 1097 -1338.32 L 770.45 -1844.2 L 690.75 -1980.36 C 682.63 -1996.59 666.76 -2017.63 643.15 -2043.46 C 622.48 -2053.05 579.31 -2057.85 513.63 -2057.85 C 456.81 -2057.85 423.23 -2054.89 412.9 -2048.99 C 400.35 -2042.35 382.64 -2015.04 359.76 -1967.08 C 267.52 -1775.94 221.39 -1627.61 221.39 -1522.08 C 221.39 -1495.51 238.74 -1470.05 273.42 -1445.7 C 342.79 -1396.99 401.09 -1372.64 448.32 -1372.64 C 467.51 -1372.64 481.9 -1380.75 491.49 -1396.99 C 498.13 -1413.96 504.78 -1430.94 511.42 -1447.91 L 556.8 -1554.18 C 580.42 -1608.79 597.76 -1636.09 608.83 -1636.09 C 616.95 -1636.09 636.5 -1613.22 667.5 -1567.46 L 1192.2 -790.37 L 1374.85 -565.66 C 1410.27 -522.12 1469.31 -487.43 1551.96 -461.6 C 1622.81 -440.2 1693.29 -429.5 1763.39 -429.5 L 1778.89 -466.03 Z}{} \lx@inpgf@ignorespaces \lxSVG@closescope \lxSVG@closescope \par \lxSVG@closescope {\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}{\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}{\lx@inpgf@ignorespaces}\hss}\lxSVG@discardpath\lxSVG@closescope \hss}}\lxSVG@closescope\endpgfpicture}} \par}) . The training efficiency is evaluated via SD Train Time for SD models, and SI Pre-train/Fine-tuning Time for SI models. For a fair comparison, all inference metrics are normalized to a single-stream execution with a batch size of 1 ( BS =1). N/A indicates that the corresponding process is not applicable to the method. Flow Time represents the constant temporal cost (0.75 s) for flow estimation.
Figure S1 : Qualitative results of surrogate experiment. The figure presents results organized into two rows, with seven columns each. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image, the projector (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns showcases compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Figure S2 : Qualitative compensation results on a setup from Set B, using a Nikon D3200 camera and a Toshiba TDP-T100C projector. Results are organized into two rows, each with seven columns. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image captured by the camera, the desired (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns shows compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Figure S3 : Qualitative compensation results on a setup from Set B, using a Nikon D3200 camera and a Toshiba TDP-T100C projector. Results are organized into two rows, each with seven columns. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image captured by the camera, the desired (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns shows compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Figure S4 : Qualitative compensation results on a setup from Set A, using a Canon camera and an Epson projector. Results are organized into two rows, each with seven columns. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image captured by the camera, the desired (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns shows compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Figure S5 : Qualitative compensation results on a setup from Set A, using a Canon camera and an Epson projector. Results are organized into two rows, each with seven columns. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image captured by the camera, the desired (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns shows compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Figure S6 : Qualitative compensation results on a setup from Set A, using a Canon camera and an Epson projector. Results are organized into two rows, each with seven columns. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image captured by the camera, the desired (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns shows compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Figure S7 : Qualitative compensation results on a setup from Set A, using a Canon camera and an Epson projector. Results are organized into two rows, each with seven columns. The top row of columns presents: the surface, the uncompensated image captured by the camera, the desired (GT), and the compensated results from various setup-dependent methods (CompenHR, DeProCams, DPCS, CompenNeSt++). The bottom row of columns shows compensated results from setup-independent methods (FF+CompenNeSt, FF+PANet, SIComp (#surf=1), SIComp (#surf=3), and SIComp (#surf=5)). The magnified insets (bottom row, indicated by red boxes) provide detailed visual comparisons.
Computational imaging combines optical and sensor design with algorithms to recover or infer scene information from indirect, compressed, or noisy measurements.
Projector-camera (ProCams) systems achieve active scene perception and controllable appearance manipulation via structured illumination, serving as a core infrastructure for spatial augmented reality, projection mapping, and surface reflectance acquisition. Existing inverse-rendering methods for ProCams deliver high-fidelity results but rely on time-consuming per-scene optimization, while mainstream feed-forward 3D reconstruction models produce baked appearance that cannot adapt to spatially varying projector illumination. To resolve this accuracy-efficiency trade-off, we propose FF-ProCams, a Feed-Forward 3D Gaussian inverse-rendering framework for ProCams. A hybrid Mamba2-Transformer encoder aggregates cross-view geometric and photometric cues from sparse multi-view observations, and lightweight heads predict a relightable Gaussian representation in a single forward pass. We further design a projector-aware differentiable renderer to synthesize camera observations under arbitrary active illumination and ProCams poses. To enable feed-forward training, we construct a large-scale synthetic ProCams dataset covering diverse object geometries and surface materials. Experiments show FF-ProCams achieves high-fidelity projector-aware rendering, generalizes to unseen patterns, and supports novel projector-camera poses. Using only 8 input views, it outperforms optimization-based baselines with 297 views while reducing test-time reconstruction to 0.13 seconds (a three-to-five-order-of-magnitude speedup). The code and data are available at https://github.com/CPREgroup/FF-ProCams/.
Projection-based appearance editing changes selected visual attributes of a physical object through projection mapping (PM). To display a desired appearance, PM typically uses projector compensation, which computes a projector input that counteracts the geometric and photometric distortions of the scene. Compensation can only approximate this appearance within the available projection range, and it cannot revise the appearance itself. Pretrained LLM-based image editors provide a direct way to produce the desired appearance from a text prompt or reference image; projector compensation can then attempt to reproduce the edited result through projection. However, these editors do not have an accurate measure of the scene geometry or scene response. Therefore, their outputs may contain geometric misalignment, inconsistent shading, or changes outside the available projection range, which downstream projector compensation cannot correct. To address this problem, we introduce SREdit, an efficient response-guided framework for projection-based appearance editing. SREdit estimates a scene response map from the reconstructed scene that reflects how strongly projected illumination can affect different surface regions. SREdit uses the source appearance to constrain the early sampling process and preserve registration with the fixed physical object, while the scene response map adapts the amount of editing across surface regions. Experiments across two pretrained image editors show that SREdit improves projected appearance quality and reproduction fidelity. It adds less than one second per image with negligible VRAM overhead. Participants also consistently preferred the results produced with SREdit in our user study.
Yuqiao Xia, Yuchen Deng, Ziheng Chang +1
College of Computer and Information Science, Southwest University, Chongqing, China
Establishing correspondence between projector and camera images in a procam (projector + camera) system is essential for achieving high-resolution pixel matching, referred to as procam registration. The highest accuracy is typically obtained using structured light patterns (e.g., stripes or blobs). However, these methods are often inefficient and lack meaningful information for human viewers. Although some have explored the use of natural images, these often fail to provide a sufficient distribution of features to achieve comparable accuracy. Additionally, existing methods struggle to cope with environmental factors such as surface textures and variations in brightness due to ambient light or changes in camera exposure. To address these limitations, we propose a method based on deep neural networks. Our approach aims to generate a single natural image from text-based prompts that not only appears realistic but also possesses rich spatial features to enhance registration accuracy in procam applications. We have developed a deep neural network trained on a synthesized dataset that simulates potential geometric and photometric distortions encountered in a procam system illuminating a relatively smooth object (see Figure 1). Our trained network predicts the correspondence between projector and camera images, significantly improving registration accuracy across various procam configurations. By jointly considering the naturalness and feature richness of the projector images, our method minimizes visual disruptions in projected content without sacrificing precision. A user study confirms that our technique enhances perceived naturalness and usability compared to existing methods, validating its practical utility in real-world applications.
Xinyu Chen, Yuqi Li, Jiabao Li +3
Ningbo University Ningbo, China · University of California, Irvine United States