Title: The Poor Man's Palace: Special Effects in the Real World Ramesh Raskar Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs (MERL), Cambridge, MA, USA http://www.merl.com/people/raskar/raskar.html Great advances in photorealistic image synthesis allow us to enjoy special effects but they remain on flat screens in movies and in video games. But in the future, will special effects have some bearing on the daily life of an average person? Mixed and Augmented Reality provides a unique opportunity. The challenge in bringing those visual effects into the real world is to make the experience aesthetic, seamless and natural. The AR community has made big strides in solving the pieces of the puzzle. I will review a range of practical solutions using Spatially Augmented Reality (SAR). In place of eye-worn or hand held displays, Spatial Augmented Reality methods exploit video projectors, cameras, radio frequency tags such as RFID, large optical elements, holograms and tracking technologies. So far, SAR research has taken only baby steps in supporting programmable reflectance, virtual illumination, synthetic motion and untethered interaction. Emerging novel display technologies, innovations in sensors and advances in material science, have the potential to enable broader applications. But the next big challenge for Computer Graphics and HCI is to exploit these innovations and deliver daily benefits for the common man via a powerful infusion of synthetic elements in the real world. Bio Ramesh Raskar joined MERL as a Research Scientist in 2000 after his doctoral research at U. of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he developed a framework for projector based displays. His work spans a range of topics in computer vision, graphics and HCI including projective geometry, non-photorealistic rendering and intelligent user interfaces. Current projects include composite RFID (RFIG), multi-flash non-photorealistic camera for depth edge detection, locale-aware mobile projectors, high dynamic range video, image fusion for context enhancement and quadric transfer methods for multi-projector curved screen displays. Dr. Raskar received the TR100 Award, Technology Review's 100 Top Young Innovators Under 35 worldwide, 2004, Global Indus Technovator Award 2003, instituted at MIT to recognize the top 20 Indian technology innovators on the globe, Mitsubishi Electric Valuable Invention Award 2004, 2006 and Mitsubishi Electric Information Technology R&D Award 2003. He is co-author of the book "Spatial Augmented Reality" (together with Oliver Bimber). http://www.merl.com/people/raskar/raskar.html