Dartmouth Professor and Team Create "Smart" Spray Can

Dartmouth's Prof. Wojciech Jarosz, together with an international team of researchers, has developed a computationally-assisted spray painting system. The research appears in this month's Computers & Graphics journal.

The group wanted to create a way to allow untrained users to spray paint large graffiti murals. To accomplish this, they instrumented a physical spray paint can with an actuator to turn it on/off and QR codes to track its location. A nearby computer analyses the position of the spray can as well as the current painting on the wall/canvas, and automatically turns the spray on or off. In essence, the spray can "knows" what it wants to paint, and the user just has to wave it around, seeing the image appear in front of them.

For more technical details and a demonstration video check out the project page on Prof. Jarosz's website.

Several news agencies are also reporting on the research:

Daily Mail | Move Over Banksy! Robotic Spray Can Helps Novices Reproduce Photos as Giant 'Paint by Numbers' Murals
gizmag | Smart spray paint copies color photos onto walls​
TechRadar | This 'smart' spray can will instantly turn you into a pro graffiti artist
NeuroScienceNews | Scientists Invent Robotic ‘Artist’ That Spray Paints Giant Murals
Phys.org | Scientists invent robotic 'artist' that spray paints giant murals