Tele-Immersion

Summer 2002

What is Tele-Immersion Networked Virtual Reality

High Speed Network: Internet 2 Virtual Reality

• computer generated, interactive, three-dimensional environment in which a person is immersed

About Tele-Immersion

• Will transform the way people collaborate at a distance • computers recognize the presence and

movements of individuals and objects• track those individuals and images• permit them to be projected in realistic,

multiple, geographically distributed immersive environments on stereo-immersive surfaces.

Virtual Reality High performance computer

graphics system Interactive Immersive

Fully & Partially Immersive

Surround Environments CAVE (Fully immersive)

• 3 rear-projected screens for walls and a reflective projection for the floor

• Stereographic LCD shutter glasses• High-resolution, high bandwidth• Computer controlled audio, support

multiple speakers• Tracking system for users’ head

movements

Surround Environments (cont’d) Responsive Workbench

Tabletop environment Stereo graphics via projector-and-mirror

system Shuttered glasses Tracking system for head, as well as

gloves and stylus to interact

Surround Environments (cont’d) Both CAVE and Responsive

Workbench are quite expensive $1,000,000 for CAVE

Our goal – build low cost VE $10,000 or less Horizontal Virtual Table (had before) Vertical Virtual Table (soon)

Virtual Table @ CAM

Software VR toolkits:

CavernSoft VRJuggler VisAD

Graphic APIs: Java3D OpenGL

Hardware Graphics Chip

Nvidia GeForce4 Graphics Card

3DLabs WildcatII 6210 SGI

Nvidia GeForce4