A real-time system for capturing humans in 3D and placing them into a mixed reality environment is presented in this paper. The subject is captured by nine cameras surrounding her. Looking through a head-mounted-display with a camera in front pointing at a marker, the user can see the 3D image of this subject overlaid onto a mixed reality scene. The 3D images of the subject viewed from this viewpoint are constructed using a robust and fast shape-from-silhouette algorithm. The paper also presents several techniques to produce good quality and speed up the whole system. The frame rate of our system is around 25 fps using only standard Intel processor-based personal computers. Besides a remote live 3D conferencing and collaborating system, we also describe an application of the system in art and entertainment, named Magic Land, which is a mixed reality environment where captured avatars of human and 3D computer generated virtual animations can form an interactive story and play with each other. This system demonstrates many technologies in human computer interaction: mixed reality, tangible interaction, and 3D communication. The result of the user study not only emphasizes the benefits, but also addresses some issues of these technologies.

Storytelling is an effective and important educational means for children. With the augmented reality (AR) technology, storytelling becomes more and more interactive and intuitive in the sense of human computer interaction. Although AR technology is not new, it's potential in education is just beginning to be explored. In this paper, we present a 3D mixed media story cube which uses a foldable cube as the tangible and interactive storytelling interface. Here, we embed both the concept of AR and the concept of tangible interaction. Multiple modalities including speech, 3D audio, 3D graphics and touch are used to provide the user (especially children) with multi-sensory experiences in the process of storytelling. Our research explores a new interface for children education.