Virtual reality news - research and literature

2003-12-11T23:08:00.000+11:00

I've bought Unreal Tournament 2003 (UT) for its editing application UnrealEd 3.0 and am working my way through various tutorials -- here are some links to non-game applications of UT and its editor
- here is an article on using UT to make a "wedge" type CAVE installation. More on this project here and tons of UT links here.

2003-11-21T18:04:00.000+11:00

Good article on motion capture systems -- including low-end Director-based systems.

2003-11-16T10:36:00.000+11:00

2d to 3d conversion softwares and services:
3d pictures - link - softwares
promagic - link - software for adjusting multiple layer photoshop files for lenticular viewing
lenticular links -- with some companies offering conversion services
Erich's conversion service
Space cadet is a free software for optimising stereo camera configuring in max scenes.
Lots of anaglyph and crosseyed viewing conversion examples on this Hungarian site.
This unusual "Smartron" autostereoscopic display also has 2d/3d conversion software.

2003-11-16T01:26:00.000+11:00

3dfilmmaker.com is a machinima technical blog -- cool links to tools and content. Article on prototype software to explode 3d models of buildings into different level views -- instant floor plans - with video ... from urbansimulation.com. A recent article on how multiple photographs under different lighting conditions can be used to produce information-rich illustrations (image-based relighting). A European conference earlier this year on "Immersive communications and broadcast systems" -- lots of leads to 3d tv screens and transmission/capture systems - including the Phillips ATTEST project. A detailed paper about it here.

2003-11-04T00:51:00.000+11:00

Software downloads from Microsoft Research -- there are some very interesting vision related tools here cf. especially Videocube. Shadowilluminator -- smart image contrast control. Videocube looks like another version of the time-space video transform idea. An interesting article on Cylindrical Relief Texture Mapping.

2003-11-03T22:37:00.000+11:00

Image Based Modeling and Rendering Links - old but still a useful collection. The Omnidirectional Vision Page -- this is the most comprehensive listing of mirror 360 systems. From this last this new (to me) Japanese stereo video 360 system (captures depth maps too.) The movie examples from this system are cool. Image mosaicing links.

2003-10-29T23:46:00.000+11:00

'grandtextauto' a group blog on interactive narrative developments has some great links ... for instance, to this blog 'Terra Nova'("Our world and its synthetic offspring: MMORPGs, toy worlds, social worlds, and other realms of emergent collective reality")

2003-10-24T21:00:00.000+10:00

Japanese urban simulation consortium - MapCube

An excellent source of "digital content creation" news

2003-10-22T02:29:00.000+10:00

There are a few video to photo enhancement tools now -- a new one (for me) Paparazzi 2.0 Cognitech's Video Investigator is a much more high end product with a number of very interesting features ... including panoramic scene reconstruction and object stabilization across frames ...

2003-10-19T09:08:00.000+10:00

On stereoscopy.org there is the first detailed account I have read of the Sharp autostereoscopic-capable laptop.

2003-10-18T14:53:00.000+10:00

Flip360 - a kind of "time slice" concept implemented as a fairground-type attraction: a large cylindrical room with 32 synced cameras -- the customers leap or dance in the middle as all the cameras record them -- the output being a flipbook animation - printed out on the spot.

2003-10-18T01:47:00.000+10:00

There are free stereo OpenGL still and movie viewers here.

Developer of OpenGL star generator app Stellarium says next version will have fisheye projection http://stellarium.free.fr/
"The next version I am working on will have features designed for use in a planetarium dome : fisheye projection with a field of view up to 360 degree, use of fisheye textures mapped to make landscapes, automatic zoom on selected objects, a text interface etc... The reason of that is an american company called Digitalis Education which is paying me for adding such cool features (that of course everybody will benefit as it is opensource). You just have to wait a few more weeks and it will finally be released! I know that I say that in every post, but each time, the release date is closer... ;) "

2003-10-17T13:45:00.000+10:00

From stereo3d.com .... the Holovizio autostereoscopic display has some interesting features --- continuous viewing zones (50 degrees continuous horizontal parallax). It really seems like a novel kind of display -- each pixel can send light of different color and intensity in different directions. Tech specs here. They have some partnership deal with Sony.

Virtual Storytelling conference in Toulouse.

2003-10-14T12:56:00.000+10:00

Single view modeling - "a novel approach for reconstructing free-form, texture-mapped, 3D scene models from a single painting or photograph". The VRML model produced from the Van Gogh self-portrait is very interesting.

2003-10-13T07:45:00.000+10:00

This article on "Kinder Gentler Stereo" is a useful analysis of factors leading to comfortable stereo viewing. It contains a good summary too of methods for enabling 2D pictures to be seen in depth (not stereo pairs - just any 2D picture).
"The common element among all of these phenomena is that viewing conditions that reduce the perception of depth in solid(3D) scenes are observed paradoxically to increase the perception of depth in flat (2D) scenes." Note also:
"Schwartz points out that in the absence of binocular perspective disparity, any kind of disparity between the two retinal imagesof a single picture will stimulate the illusion of depth in a picture with enough high level cues. "

The Zeiss Synopter was an optical instrument exploiting these ideas - like a pair of binoculars, except that both eyepieces were connected to a single objective lens instead of two as in normal binoculars. So the device enables the viewer to see the world (pictures) with two eyes but from a single point in space -- ie. with zero disparity. It was sold to art gallery goers so they could see paintings etc in depth. There is a more detailed description here quoting an article "On so-called paradoxical monocular stereoscopy"

There is a good article Perceiving Scenes in Film and in the World which bears on some of these points - by James E. Cutting (from a book "Moving image theory - ecological considerations")

On the stereovision.net forum there is a thread on a related concept: viz. that of using stereo viewing technology to create the effect of a large virtual screen from a regular 2D video source material. The instigator of the thread has now made a web page detailing a method of "Converting your 14" monitor to a massive Cinema Screen"

2003-10-12T10:48:00.000+10:00

An exhibition on "Spatial emotion in contemporary art and architecture" at a Swiss Museum
"The exhibition takes as its point of departure three contexts in which space occupies a central position: Sigmund Freud’s notion of “das Unheimliche” and psychoanalytical elaboration of space and its emotion; Michel Foucault’s other spaces – heterotopias and their counter-site qualities of socio-political implications; and Walter Benjamin’s outmoded and repressed space with all its auratic traces (fake or authentic) of philosophical and historic charge."
das Unheimliche is the uncanny (un-homelike) and refers to the Freud essay on the uncanny.

Thinking about the DTs (delirium tremens) and the character of the visual hallucinations associated with them -- the word which came to mind was "fourmillante" -- French for swarming. In "The Waste Land", quoting Baudelaire, Eliot has:
'Fourmillante cite, cite pleine de reves,
'Ou le spectre en plein jour raccroche le passant.'
.. which word googles along to this essay on insects in modernism. From this, on insects and spatial emotion, this lovely paragraph:

"The reason that we have no relation with insects is that they are so close to us. In fact, they signify a nauseous, teeming closeness itself. The arachnophobe cannot be in the same room where they know a spider is, because spiders have the power to rearrange space, unsettling speeds and distances, folding nearness and farness together. One of the more important distinctions between arachnids and insects is that most arachnids are solitary rather than social creatures. But insects and arachnids always appear to us as one of a crowd, or a crowd in itself. (Trust me on this: I am myself a recovering arachnophobe, and for arachnaphobia, like alcoholism, there is no cure, only indefinite remission.) Insects do not live in space, they are space itself, because they are too big for space, too packed and pullulating. An insect colony always pulverises and overflows space and sets it at naught, spreading, pouring, invading. "

There is a repulsive running VRML 3d cockroach here
(you can get a VRML viewer from the Parallelgraphics or Bitmananagement sites)
This group has their 3d insects doing their thing in a CAVE immersive environment ..
"In the CAVE you can stand near a 10-yard cockroach or a grasshopper. You can even get swallowed by a grasshopper and find yourself in its abdomen. But the abdomen is empty because our cyber-insects have no internal organs yet. Our next project will be to add internal anatomy to some of the insects."

Here (Kinetic Visualization) there are some interesting videos showing how having crawling spots animating over the surface of 3d objects can provide strong 3d cues. This video in particular, with crawling, flocking spots animating over the surface of a torso, proves their point as to the effectiveness of the technique - but has a strongly abject emotional impact.

2003-10-11T19:21:00.000+10:00

I have been reading online a bit about the psychopathology of vision ... thinking that it might have some relevance to virtual reality environments.
"Peduncular hallucinosis" is an interesting brain pathology condition -- where the sufferer sees small brightly colored animated characters. Unlike the visions of the DTs say these are regarded with equanimity or interest ... not loathing.
"Birds and small animals figure prominently in most reported cases.
Frequent, although less common than animals, are hallucinations of faces and persons. We note a feature of several cases, including our own case, involving the multiplicative images of people. Some cases have experienced visions of groups of people walking or marching in file or gathering around. "

There is another syndrome, not associated with brain pathology, but with late onset sight loss, where formed images are hallucinated - again usually without emotionally negative meaning for the viewer. The Charles Bonnet Syndrome (CBS) was described first in the 18th century.

This site describes how common CBS is (1 in 7 of elderly impaired vision patients), and interesting cognitive-behavioral therapy approaches.
Some techniques patients found effective ..
"- closing the eyes;
- opening the eyes;
- blinking;
- moving the eyes swiftly;
- looking or walking away;
- approaching the hallucinated objects;
- visual fixation on the hallucinations;
- putting on a light;
- concentrating an something else / looking for distraction;
- hitting the hallucination;
- shouting at the hallucination"

Compare Tesla's unusual visual experiences in his youth, as described well here in this site about some meditation practice:
"As a boy, Tesla was tormented by flashing lights and images of remembered scenes that would appear before his eyes without warning and with blinding intensity. A single word spoken to Tesla in conversation might suddenly trigger a lifelike image of the person or thing that the word represented. These images were so real that Tesla found himself "quite unable to distinguish whether what I saw was tangible or not" a confusion which caused him "great discomfort and anxiety". "