Shadow Cooking: Situated Guidance for a Fluid Cooking Experience

Cooking is one of the most popular activities at home; however, preparing a new dish by reading a recipe is not a trivial task. People might lose their current position in the recipe, misunderstand the required amount of ingredients, and generally become confused by the step that should be followed next. Shadow Cooking guides users with situated, step-by-step information projected on a kitchen counter. It consists of a depth camera and a projector, which are installed above the kitchen counter. Shadow Cooking instructs the user on the steps to follow by projecting information directly onto the utensils and ingredients. The system also integrates a digital kitchen scale with the recipe such that the user is automatically prompted with the required weight based on the ingredient currently being measured. In addition, we have connected the system with remote locations in order to enable a user to communicate with other cooks easily.