A multiuser multiperspective stereographic QTVR browser complemented by Java3D visualizer and emulator

Abstract

To support multiperspective and stereographic image display systems intended for multiuser applications, we have developed two integrated multiuser multiperspective stereographic browsers, respectively featuring IBR-generated egocentric and CG exocentric perspectives. The first one described, "VR4U2C" ('virtual reality for you to see'), uses Apple's QuickTime VR technology and the Java programming language together with the support of the QuickTime for java library. This unique QTVR browser allows coordinated display of multiple views of a scene or object, limited only by the size and number of monitors or projectors assembled around or among users (for panoramas or turnoramas) in various viewing locations. The browser also provides a novel solution to limitations associated with display of QTVR imagery: its multinode feature provides interactive stereographic QTVR (dubbed SQTVR) to display dynamically selected pairs of images exhibiting binocular parallax, the stereoscopic depth percept enhanced by motion parallax from displacement of the viewpoint through space coupled with rotation of the view through a 360° horizontal panorama. This navigable approach to SQTVR allows proper occlusion/disocclusion as the virtual standpoint shifts, as well as natural looming of closer objects compared to more distant ones. We have integrated this stereographic panoramic browsing application in a client/server architecture with a sibling client, named "Just Look at Yourself!" which is built with Java3D and allows realtime visualization of the dollying and viewpoint adjustment as well as juxtaposition and combination of stereographic CG and IBR displays. "Just Look at Yourself!" visualizes and emulates VR4U2C, embedding avatars associated with cylinder pairs wrapped around the stereo standpoints texture-mapped with a set of panoramic scenes into a 3D CG model of the same space as that captured by the set of panoramas. The transparency of the 3D CG polygon space and the photorealistic stereographic 360° scenes, as well as the size of the stereo goggles through which the CG space is conceptually viewed and upon which the 360° scenes are texture-mapped, can be adjusted at runtime to understand the relationship of the spaces. © 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.