FVV Live: A real-time free-viewpoint video system with consumer electronics hardware

FVV Live is a novel end-to-end free-viewpoint video system, designed for low cost and real-time operation, based on off-the-shelf components. The system has been designed to yield high-quality free-viewpoint video using consumer-grade cameras and hardware, which enables low deployment costs and easy installation for immersive event-broadcasting or videoconferencing. The paper describes the architecture of the system, including acquisition and encoding of multiview plus depth data in several capture servers and virtual view synthesis on an edge server. All the blocks of the system have been designed to overcome the limitations imposed by hardware and network, which impact directly on the accuracy of depth data and thus on the quality of virtual view synthesis. The design of FVV Live allows for an arbitrary number of cameras and capture servers, and the results presented in this paper correspond to an implementation with nine stereo-based depth cameras. FVV Live presents low motion-to-photon and end-to-end delays, which enables seamless free-viewpoint navigation and bilateral immersive communications. Moreover, the visual quality of FVV Live has been assessed through subjective assessment with satisfactory results, and additional comparative tests show that it is preferred over state-of-the-art DIBR alternatives

没入型テレプレゼンス環境における身体のマッピングと拡張に関する研究

学位の種別: 課程博士審査委員会委員 : （主査）東京大学教授 暦本 純一, 東京大学教授 坂村 健, 東京大学教授 越塚 登, 東京大学教授 中尾 彰宏, 東京大学教授 佐藤 洋一University of Tokyo(東京大学

A Scoping Review on Virtual Reality-Based Industrial Training

The fourth industrial revolution has forced most companies to technologically evolve, applying new digital tools, so that their workers can have the necessary skills to face changing work environments. This article presents a scoping review of the literature on virtual reality-based training systems. The methodology consisted of four steps, which pose research questions, document search, paper selection, and data extraction. From a total of 350 peer-reviewed database articles, such as SpringerLink, IEEEXplore, MDPI, Scopus, and ACM, 44 were eventually chosen, mostly using the virtual reality haptic glasses and controls from Oculus Rift and HTC VIVE. It was concluded that, among the advantages of using this digital tool in the industry, is the commitment, speed, measurability, preservation of the integrity of the workers, customization, and cost reduction. Even though several research gaps were found, virtual reality is presented as a present and future alternative for the efficient training of human resources in the industrial field.This work was supported by Instituto Superior Tecnológico Victoria Vásconez Cuvi. The authors appreciate the opportunity to analyze topics related to this paper. The authors must also recognize the supported bringing by Universidad Tecnica de Ambato (UTA) and their Research and Development Department (DIDE) under project CONIN-P-256-2019, and SENESCYT by grants “Convocatoria Abierta 2011” and “Convocatoria Abierta 2013”

Fusing Multimedia Data Into Dynamic Virtual Environments

In spite of the dramatic growth of virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR) technology, content creation for immersive and dynamic virtual environments remains a significant challenge. In this dissertation, we present our research in fusing multimedia data, including text, photos, panoramas, and multi-view videos, to create rich and compelling virtual environments. First, we present Social Street View, which renders geo-tagged social media in its natural geo-spatial context provided by 360° panoramas. Our system takes into account visual saliency and uses maximal Poisson-disc placement with spatiotemporal filters to render social multimedia in an immersive setting. We also present a novel GPU-driven pipeline for saliency computation in 360° panoramas using spherical harmonics (SH). Our spherical residual model can be applied to virtual cinematography in 360° videos. We further present Geollery, a mixed-reality platform to render an interactive mirrored world in real time with three-dimensional (3D) buildings, user-generated content, and geo-tagged social media. Our user study has identified several use cases for these systems, including immersive social storytelling, experiencing the culture, and crowd-sourced tourism. We next present Video Fields, a web-based interactive system to create, calibrate, and render dynamic videos overlaid on 3D scenes. Our system renders dynamic entities from multiple videos, using early and deferred texture sampling. Video Fields can be used for immersive surveillance in virtual environments. Furthermore, we present VRSurus and ARCrypt projects to explore the applications of gestures recognition, haptic feedback, and visual cryptography for virtual and augmented reality. Finally, we present our work on Montage4D, a real-time system for seamlessly fusing multi-view video textures with dynamic meshes. We use geodesics on meshes with view-dependent rendering to mitigate spatial occlusion seams while maintaining temporal consistency. Our experiments show significant enhancement in rendering quality, especially for salient regions such as faces. We believe that Social Street View, Geollery, Video Fields, and Montage4D will greatly facilitate several applications such as virtual tourism, immersive telepresence, and remote education

Ubiquitous haptic feedback in human-computer interaction through electrical muscle stimulation

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Dataset of Panoramic Images for People Tracking in Service Robotics

We provide a framework for constructing a guided robot for usage in hospitals in this thesis. The omnidirectional camera on the robot allows it to recognize and track the person who is following it. Furthermore, when directing the individual to their preferred position in the hospital, the robot must be aware of its surroundings and avoid accidents with other people or items. To train and evaluate our robot's performance, we developed an auto-labeling framework for creating a dataset of panoramic videos captured by the robot's omnidirectional camera. We labeled each person in the video and their real position in the robot's frame, enabling us to evaluate the accuracy of our tracking system and guide the development of the robot's navigation algorithms. Our research expands on earlier work that has established a framework for tracking individuals using omnidirectional cameras. We want to contribute to the continuing work to enhance the precision and dependability of these tracking systems, which is essential for the creation of efficient guiding robots in healthcare facilities, by developing a benchmark dataset. Our research has the potential to improve the patient experience and increase the efficiency of healthcare institutions by reducing staff time spent guiding patients through the facility.We provide a framework for constructing a guided robot for usage in hospitals in this thesis. The omnidirectional camera on the robot allows it to recognize and track the person who is following it. Furthermore, when directing the individual to their preferred position in the hospital, the robot must be aware of its surroundings and avoid accidents with other people or items. To train and evaluate our robot's performance, we developed an auto-labeling framework for creating a dataset of panoramic videos captured by the robot's omnidirectional camera. We labeled each person in the video and their real position in the robot's frame, enabling us to evaluate the accuracy of our tracking system and guide the development of the robot's navigation algorithms. Our research expands on earlier work that has established a framework for tracking individuals using omnidirectional cameras. We want to contribute to the continuing work to enhance the precision and dependability of these tracking systems, which is essential for the creation of efficient guiding robots in healthcare facilities, by developing a benchmark dataset. Our research has the potential to improve the patient experience and increase the efficiency of healthcare institutions by reducing staff time spent guiding patients through the facility