Entertainment applications of human-scale virtual reality systems

Abstract

This paper describes three applications of human-scale virtual reality in demonstrative systems. The first application is a demonstrative system, the "Tangible Playroom". It was designed as a computer entertainment system for children. It provides virtual reality entertainment with a room-scale force-feedback display, an immersive floor image, and real-time physics simulator. Children can play using their whole bodies to interact with a virtual world controlled by software using rigid body dynamics and the penalty method. The second application, "the labyrinth walker," was designed as a virtual exploration system for children's museum. Its step-in-place capability can provide a 'walkable' walk-through virtual reality environment with no worn interfaces. The third application regards photo-realistic virtual TV sets for high-definition television (HDTV) production. It can provide a real-time high-quality 3D synthesis environment using high dynamic range images (HDRI), global illumination, a HDTV depth-measuring camera called "Axi-Vision" and wire based motion control camera for real-time synthesis. In this paper, we report on these applications' possibilities and give abstracts on their technology. © Springer-Verlag 2004.