In general, the viewing experience of stereoscopic panoramas heavily relies on the accuracy of perceived depth information. However, most of existed stereoscopic panorama stitching methods always focus on the improvement, refinement, and correction during the image alignment or panorama stitching. The impairment to the depth information introduced by later steps is rarely under consideration. Thus, we propose one general post-stitching depth correction technique based on sparsely detected control points. The proposed depth correction can be divided into two steps. The global one aims at minimizing the average depth error by adjusting the relative poses of two panoramas. Then, the local step tries to relieve those regions-based depth issues with the morphing technique. For those regions that still suffer from visible depth error after the global correction, we select control points in those depth anomaly patches and utilize the Thin-Plate-Spline technique to warp those features into their target position. To demonstrate the robustness of the proposed depth adjustment technique, various experiments are conducted under different camera arrangements and scenarios. The result indicates that the stereoscopic panoramas after proposed depth adjustment could deliver more reasonable depth information and bring a better viewing experience.

In this paper, we present one saliency-based feature selection and tracking strategy in the feature-based stereoscopic panoramic video generation system. Many existing stereoscopic video composition approaches aim at producing high-quality panoramas from multiple input cameras; however, most of them directly operate image alignment on those originally detected features without any refinement or optimization. The standard global feature extraction threshold always fails to guarantee stitching correctness of all human interested regions. Thus, based on the originally commonly identified feature set, we incorporate the saliency map into the distribution of control points to remove the redundancy in texture-rich regions and ensure the adequacy of selected features in visual sensitive regions. Intuitively, under the guidance of saliency change in the video sequence, one grid-based feature updating strategy is operated between consecutive frames instead of the standard global feature updating. The experiments show that our method can improve the stitching quality of visual important region without impairment to the human less-interested regions in the generated stereoscopic panoramic video.

In this paper, we present a solution for the generation of high-resolution stereoscopic panoramas. Many existing monocular approaches can produce high-quality panoramas; however, direct application of these techniques to the stereo case often fail to deliver high-quality stereo vision. Compared to generating a high-quality monocular panorama, generating a high-quality stereo panorama using existing techniques is challenging owing to the inconsistency between the left and right views and difficulties in disparity control. In our proposed disparity control strategy, one commonly identified feature set is utilized to describe the identical feature in two pairs of adjacent input images instead of processing the left and right images independently. In addition, the conventional RANSAC algorithm is extended to the stereo case to further improve the stereo consistency. After the aligning and blending steps, a global panorama disparity correction technique is applied to compensate for the vertical disparity and correct horizontal disparity. The experiments show that our method can enforce left and right input images to be stitched by very similar pose parameters and generate high-quality stereo panoramas that provide a pleasant 3D viewing experience.

This video describes the CAVE2 Hybrid Reality Environment developed by the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). CAVE2 is a near-seamless flat-panel-based, surround-screen immersive system that can simultaneously display both 2D and 3D information, providing more flexibility for mixed media applications and more opportunities for groups of researchers to work together with large heterogeneous datasets [1]. CAVE2 is a cylindrical system of 24 feet in diameter and 8 feet tall, and consists of 72 near-seamless, off-axis-optimized passive-stereo LCD panels, creating a 320-degree panoramic environment for displaying information at 37 Megapixels (in stereoscopic 3D) or 74 Megapixels in 2D and at a horizontal visual acuity of 20/20 [2]. Custom LCD panels with shifted polarizers were built so the images in the top and bottom rows of LCDs are optimized for vertical off-center viewing, allowing viewers to come closer to the displays while minimizing ghosting. EVL's Omegalib middleware supports fully immersive OpenGL, OpenSceneGraph and VTK applications, as well as EVL's SAGE middleware to achieve a hybrid 2D/3D environment. CAVE2 also supports CalVR (developed at the Calit2 Qualcomm Institute at University of California, San Diego), Electro (by Robert Kooima, currently at Louisiana State University) and Google Earth.

Summary form only given. In this virtual-reality art installation - a mathematical play space - the viewer-participant creates an immersive visual and sonic experience. It is based on the mathematical and physical simulation of over one million particles with momentum and elastic reflection in an environment with gravity. The final scene has a realistic rendering of water with reflections and lighting based on spherical harmonics. Sound components are triggered and modified by the user and particle interaction. The application was originally developed using a CUDA particle system running within Thumb, a virtual-reality framework developed by Robert Kooima. It is now being ported to CalVR, developed by researchers at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) Qualcomm Institute at University of California, San Diego.

This article will describe the progress since 2000 on research and development in 2-D and 3-D scalable resolution display walls that are built from tiling individual lower resolution flat panel displays. The article will describe approaches and trends in display hardware construction, middleware architecture, and user-interaction design. The article will also highlight examples of use cases and the benefits the technology has brought to their respective disciplines.

Recognizing the value of autostereoscopy for 3D displays in public contexts, we pursue the goal of large-scale, high-resolution, immersive virtual reality using lenticular displays. Our contributions include the scalable tiling of lenticular displays to large fields of view and the use of GPU image interleaving and application optimization for real-time performance. In this context, we examine several ways to improve group-viewing by combining user tracking with multi-view displays.

A solid-state dynamic parallax barrier autostereoscopic display mitigates some of the restrictions present in static barrier systems, such as fixed view-distance range, slow response to head movements, and fixed stereo operating mode. By dynamically varying barrier parameters in real time, viewers may move closer to the display and move faster laterally than with a static barrier system, and the display can switch between 3D and 2D modes by disabling the barrier on a per-pixel basis. Moreover, Dynallax can output four independent eye channels when two viewers are present, and both head-tracked viewers receive an independent pair of left-eye and right-eye perspective views based on their position in 3D space. The display device is constructed by using a dual-stacked LCD monitor where a dynamic barrier is rendered on the front display and a modulated virtual environment composed of two or four channels is rendered on the rear display. Dynallax was recently demonstrated in a small-scale head-tracked prototype system. This paper summarizes the concepts presented earlier, extends the discussion of various topics, and presents recent improvements to the system.

Autostereoscopic displays enable unencumbered immersive virtual reality, but at a significant computational expense. This expense impacts the feasibility of autostereo displays in high-performance real-time interactive applications. A new autostereo rendering algorithm named autostereo combiner addresses this problem using the programmable vertex and fragment pipelines of modern graphics processing units (GPUs). This algorithm is applied to the Varrier, a large-scale, head-tracked, parallax barrier autostereo virtual reality platform. In this capacity, the Combiner algorithm has shown performance gains of 4x over traditional parallax barrier rendering algorithms. It has enabled high-performance rendering at sub-pixel scales, affording a 2x increase in resolution and showing a 1.4x improvement in visual acuity

In this paper, the effects of three visual factors: scene complexity, stereovision and motion parallax on correct perception of a virtual object's size were analyzed in an immersive virtual environment. We designed a controlled experiments set to incorporate visual conditions that reflected all twelve different configuration combinations of the three visual factors. Under each visual condition, subject performed the task of making judgments of the sizes of a virtual object displayed at five different distances from him/her. A total number of eighteen subjects participated in our study. The subjects' judgments and the corresponding actual sizes of the virtual object were recorded. Based on the collected data, two quantitative measures of subjects' performance were derived and analyzed. The results of our experiments were consistent across the majority of the subject population and suggested that scene complexity and stereovision could have significant impact on the performance of a user of virtual environments to make correct judgments on a virtual object's size. On the contrary, motion parallax, either produced by the virtual environment or by the observer, might not be a significant factor in determining that performance

A novel barrier strip autostereoscopic (AS) display is demonstrated using a solid-state dynamic parallax barrier. A dynamic barrier mitigates restrictions inherent in static barrier systems such as fixed view distance range, slow response to head movements, and fixed stereo operating mode. By dynamically varying barrier parameters in real time, viewers may move closer to the display and move faster laterally than with a static barrier system. Furthermore, users can switch between 3D and 2D modes by disabling the barrier. Dynallax is head-tracked, directing view channels to positions in space reported by a tracking system in real time. Such head-tracked parallax barrier systems have traditionally supported only a single viewer, but by varying the barrier period to eliminate conflicts between viewers, Dynallax presents four independent eye channels when two viewers are present. Each viewer receives an independent pair of left and right eye perspective views based on their position in 3D space. The display device is constructed using a dual-stacked LCD monitor where a dynamic barrier is rendered on the front display and the rear display produces a modulated VR scene composed of two or four channels. A small-scale head-tracked prototype VR system is demonstrated.

Within the large spectrum of possible VR application areas, automotive applications were among the first to appear, and are among the most demanding. Technology has not been sufficiently sophisticated for many tasks. The troubling thought is that we are happy to push the technology envelope, but don't really know how useful this technology is, or can be. Could I do my job even if I had a real-time, ortho-stereoscopic, head-tracked, multi-viewer, wide-field-of-view, high-dynamic-range display with eye-limiting acuity?

Virtual reality (VR) has long been hampered by the gear needed to make the experience possible; specifically, stereo glasses and tracking devices. Autostereoscopic display devices are gaining popularity by freeing the user from stereo glasses, however few qualify as VR displays. The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has designed and produced a large scale, high resolution head-tracked barrier-strip autostereoscopic display system that produces a VR immersive experience without requiring the user to wear any encumbrances. The resulting system, called Varrier, is a passive parallax barrier 35-panel tiled display that produces a wide field of view, head-tracked VR experience. This paper presents background material related to parallax barrier autostereoscopy, provides system configuration and construction details, examines Varrier interleaving algorithms used to produce the stereo images, introduces calibration and testing, and discusses the camera-based tracking subsystem.

This paper describes "The Thing Growing", a work of interactive fiction implemented in virtual reality, in which the user is the main protagonist and interacts with computer controlled characters. This work of fiction depends on the user's emotional investment in the story and on her relationship to a central character, the Thing.

The Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) has partnered with dozens of computational scientists and engineers to create visualization and virtual reality (VR) devices and applications for collaborative exploration of scientific and engineering data. Since 1995, our research and development activities have incorporated emerging high bandwidth networks like the vBNS and the Internet2 in an effort now called Tele-Immersion. As a result of our six years' experience in building first and second generation VR devices to support these applications, we consider third generation VR devices that will provide desktop/office sized displays. Since no current technology is yet configurable with ideal resolution and size, we will first simulate these devices with available parts, and then build more advanced prototypes. We believe that the devices we propose to build using the new display technologies form a set of desirable human/computer interface requirements for successful Tele-Immersion adoption. A goal of this research is to develop clearly compelling prototypes so that these devices can be improved and reproduced by the private sector.

In most virtual reality applications, 3-d space is a passive, ambient continuum in which the objects of study are placed. When the 3-d space itself is the object of study, as with mathematical manifolds, VR is especially important as a visualization medium. We describe the visualization of such spaces in the CAVE virtual environment.

The first half of a two-step quaternion Julia set visualization system is described. This step uses a quarternion square root function to adapt the classic inverse iteration algorithm to the quaternions. The augmented version produces a 3-D Julia set defined by a point cloud that can be interactively manipulated on a graphics workstation. Several cues are assigned to the point cloud to increase depth perception. Finally, a short theorem is proven that extends the domain of the inverse iteration method to a rotational family of quadratic quaternion Julia sets.>

As shown in 1982, Julia sets of quadratic functions as well as many other deterministic fractals exist in spaces of higher dimensionality than the complex plane. Originally a boundary-tracking algorithm was used to view these structures but required a large amount of storage space to operate. By ray tracing these objects, the storage facilities of a graphics workstation frame buffer are sufficient. A short discussion of a specific set of 3-D deterministic fractals precedes a full description of a ray-tracing algorithm applied to these objects. A comparison with the boundary-tracking method and applications to other 3-D deterministic fractals are also included.

Article Artists interfacing with technology: Basic concepts of digital creation Share on Authors: Larry Cuba independent artist independent artistView Profile , Darcy Gerbarg New York University New York UniversityView Profile , Andrew Lippman MIT MITView Profile , Dan Sandin University of Illinois - Chicago University of Illinois - ChicagoView Profile , Chairman: Frank Dietrich West Coast University West Coast UniversityView Profile Authors Info & Claims SIGGRAPH '83: Proceedings of the 10th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniquesJuly 1983 Pages 311–313https://doi.org/10.1145/800059.801162Published:01 July 1983 0citation503DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads503Last 12 Months5Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access

Civilization and its requisite overhead have neatly brought us away from real-time interactions. The high priests of technology use unwieldly systems to perpetuate cybercrud--the art of using computers to put things over on people. This mentality can be countered by bringing to people systems that are easily learned and used--'habitable' systems. 'Habitability', then, is the quality of a system that makes it comfortable to learn and use.Computer graphics, is especially in a media production environment, must be highly people-oriented. This paper attempts to develop the two essential components for a people-oriented computer system--habitability and environment, using the educational media production laboratory known as the Circle Graphics Habitat as the example.