PurpleFlux

Surround-sound meet surround-video

When I took a virtual reality course at ISU I had the idea of creating a sphere covered with pinhole cameras. You could then project the data onto curved surfaces to view or process the data for 3D. But what am I going to do with a hardware idea? It matters not because Micoy, an Ames company, has already got similar technology working. Funny thing is I am pretty sure I applied for a job there when it was known as Prairie Logic.

Um, so what makes this different than the cave that they made at ISU...the 6 sided VR box?

Posted by thredge at 19:30 on 28 April 2005

Good question. Well the C6 ( http://www.vrac.iastate.edu/c6.php ) displays computer generated 3D simulation, whereas Micoy's product displays real video in 3D. The consequence of this is that in the C6 you can move around the simulation and see things from multiple points of view, but not with Micoy's product. With that your location is fixed movement-wise where the camera was, though you can of course turn your head to see different views. Of course the camera can move, so you could have a virtual tour for example, but you the viewer wouldn't have much choice. Multiple predetermined paths could be spliced together to give you some choice though. You could do a live-action 3D Myst-type game that way :)

I think a hybrid system would be awesome. Modelling the entire surroundings for the C6 simulation is a major pain (that is why my simulation was on a flat plane) so being able to use video for the background and only model the foreground objects would be real nice. To get around the camera movement problem, I'd say perhaps taking shots from predetermined locations at the site and perhaps interpolating the results for the areas in between might work.

In my view the real kicker for the Micoy product would be live virtual reality. Say you have a robot equipped with this camera - talk about telepresence! Probably the military is already on this, who knows.

Posted by PurpleFlux at 10:33 on 29 April 2005