High-quality acquisition and rendering of image-based models for tele-presence in remote environments

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Tele-Presence aims to create the experience of being at a distant location or environment and interacting with it. We propose to create a high-quality immersive experience that provides the sense of "being there" through the use of image-based models. The project will advance the state-of-the-art by developing new methods for acquisition, for seamless virtual navigation and for transmission and display on devices ranging from HDTVs, auto-stereoscopic monitors to an immersive CAVE (room-sized multi-screen stereo projection system). The specific objectives of the project are: A) Development of a formal procedure for high-quality image-based model acquisition, outdoors with a human-operated motorized scooter and indoors with a semi-autonomous robot; B) Development of authoring and processing tools for the deployment and augmentation of high-quality models; C) Development of advanced computer vision techniques to achieve smooth and unconstrained navigation inside complex image-based models; D) Development of methods for transmission and high-quality display of continuous views of the model. These objectives will be beneficial to Canada and our supporting organizations. Frontline/Whitebox Robotics is expected to benefit from the proposed research because of its application to remote surveillance and navigation in security applications. Based on the proposed research, the information technology company 3Vista will be able to provide its customers in the construction industry a higher quality immersive experience by integrating their 3D architectural models with image-based environments. Our objectives and our collaboration with the Communication Research Centre are of great interest to the media industry because the proposed research will enable the recording, broadcast and viewing of 3DTV content. We will use three application scenarios to demonstrate the technologies to be developed: a) acquisition, transmission and display of an image-based model of a landmark park supporting free navigation inside the park; b) augmentation of an image-based environment of a construction site with 3D architectural models; and c) a virtual stereoscopic fly-through of a building.