Virtual reflections and virtual shadows in mixed reality environments

Abstract

In this paper we propose the concepts of virtual reflections, lights and shadows to enhance immersion in mixed reality (MR) environments, which focus on merging the real and the virtual world seamlessly. To improve immersion, we augment the virtual objects with real world information regarding the virtual reality (VR) system environment, e.g., CAVE, workbench etc. Real-world objects such as input devices or light sources as well as the position and posture of the user are used to simulate global illumination phenomena, e.g., users can see their own reflections and shadows on virtual objects. Besides the concepts and the implementation of this approach, we describe the system setup and an example application for this kind of advanced MR system environment. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.