Interactive virtual studio and immersive televiewer environment

  • Authors:
  • Laehyun Kim;Heedong Ko;Mooho Park;Hyeran Byun

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA;Korea Institute of Science and Technology, 39-1, Hawolkok-dong, Sungbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea;Department of Computer Science, Yonsei University, 134, Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Korea and Korea Institute of Science and Technology, 39-1, Hawolkok-dong, Sungbuk-gu, Seoul, Korea;Department of Computer Science, Yonsei University, 134, Shinchon-dong, Seodaemun-gu, Seoul, Korea

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology
  • Year:
  • 1999

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel virtual studio system in which an anchor in the virtual set interacts with televiewers as if they were sharing the same environment. A televiewer participates in the virtual studio environment by sensing and controlling a dummy head equipped with camera, speaker and microphones. The dummy head acts as a surrogate televiewer, providing the viewpoint experienced by the televiewer via a video camera and the sound experienced by the televiewer via microphone in its head. The anchor can not only interact with the virtual set elements but also share the physical studio with the surrogate televiewers. A televiewer with a head-mounted display (HMD) may feel immersed in the virtual studio environment seamlessly combining the virtual set elements with the real studio elements and interact with the anchor and vice versa. The proposed system consists of Interactive Virtual Studio (IVS) environment and Immersive Televiewer Environment (ITE) in which all the physical elements are collected and managed through IVS and the seamlessly mixed virtual and real elements are experienced via ITE. The essential idea is to have a dual universe where what makes a natural interface only physically should remain as physical and what makes easier to represent virtually should remain virtual and these two parallel universe should be coordinated seamlessly to provide the proper mix of the virtual and real mixed reality experience. In practice, this new interactive virtual studio for the immersive tele-meeting environment may be applied to the production of interactive TV program, tele-conferencing, tele-education and others.