CRI: IAD Integrated Projector-Camera Modules for the Capture and Creation of Wide-Area Immersive Experiences

在20世纪90年代早期，CAVE显示器的引入是投影虚拟环境发展的一个重要里程碑，它允许一群人同时共享虚拟空间。从那时起，包括北卡罗来纳大学在内的许多研究人员已经开发出新的方法，将投影仪组合成大型平铺显示器，在任意形状的显示表面上呈现无缝图像。实现广域虚拟存在涉及到3D重建、模型管理、仿真以及显示方面的巨大挑战。这项工作的应用包括虚拟团队培训和远程呈现。这个项目在新的35000平方英尺的空间里创建了一个独一无二的实验室。Frederick P. Brooks Jr.计算机科学大楼（UNC计算机科学综合体的一部分）致力于广域虚拟存在研究，多学科协作应用以及教育和推广。研究人员利用该设施在以下与虚拟存在相关的互补领域进行独立但协调的研究。他们的工作样本是：广域4D场景/事件捕获在房间大小的空间，包括移动的人；利用时空超体积对非均匀相机阵列的三维场景进行建模；多人运动跟踪/捕获，目标是实现完全无标记跟踪，特别是头部和肢体姿势；探索人类运动的时空/频率特征，以帮助预测和量化不确定性；广域、沉浸式、高分辨率多人显示；并将虚拟环境中的用户行为与现实世界中用户行为的黄金标准进行比较，从技术的角度决定什么是重要的。除了与广域虚拟存在相关的核心研究之外，研究人员还将这一领先的设施用于多学科合作项目，这些项目受益于紧密耦合的捕获、计算或显示基础设施。研究人员还将利用这些基础设施开展几个教育和推广项目，开始培养下一代计算机科学家。

In the early 1990s, the introduction of the CAVE display, which permits a group of people to share a virtual space simultaneously, was a major milestone in the development of projective virtual environments. Since then, many researchers, including those at UNC, have developed new methods for combining projectors into large tiled displays with seamless imagery on arbitrarily shaped display surfaces. Achieving wide-area virtual presence involves monumental challenges in 3D reconstruction, model management, and simulation, as well as display. Among the applications for this work are virtual team training and telepresence.This project creates a one-of-a-kind laboratory in the new 35,000-sq.-ft. Frederick P. Brooks Jr. Computer Science Building (part of the UNC Computer Science complex) dedicated to wide-area virtual presence research, multidisciplinary collaborative applications, and education and outreach. The researchers use the facility to pursue independent but coordinated research in the following complementary areas related to virtual presence. Samples of their work are: wide-area 4D scene/event capture in room-sized spaces that include moving humans; modeling of 3D scenes from non-uniform arrays of cameras using spatio-temporal hypervolumes;multi-person motion tracking/capture with the goal of achieving completely markerless tracking, specially of the head and limb pose; exploration of the space-time/frequency characteristics of human motion to aid in prediction and to help quantify uncertainty; wide-area, immersive, high-resolution multi-person displays; and comparison of user behavior in a virtual environment to the gold standard of user behavior in the real world, to decide what is important from a technology standpoint.Beyond the core research related to wide-area virtual presence, the investigators use this leading-edge facility for multidisciplinary collaborative projects that benefit from the tightly coupled capture, computation, or display infrastructure. The investigators will also make use of the infrastructure for several education and outreach projects, to start developing the next generation of computer scientists.