Immersive Virtual Reality projection systems

Jon Marbach

Immersive Virtual Reality projection systems, often known as CAVEs, are large enough to support multiple concurrent users, yet most have been designed to present a single stereographic image to a single, motion-tracked user. Previous efforts to accommodate multiple users have focused on providing multiple stereo pairs through increasingly complex and costly projection hardware. Some prior work in producing a single stereo image pair for multiple users does exist, but it is not well suited to the cube-like shape of many virtual reality systems. This work proposes novel rendering techniques which attempt to improve the user experience for pairs or small groups of co-located users in single-stereo-pair projection systems. Several techniques are evaluated in a human-subjects experiment, the results of which show that presenting views from the mean head position, with or without per-user stereo-pairs, improves the user experience by significantly increasing a user’s sense of presence and by decreasing the incidence of simulator sickness.

Biography

Jon Marbach, is a former Computer Science graduate (class of 1999) and former Computer Science Instructor (2000-2001). He will be discussing his Graduate School experiences - both from his Master's Degree which he completed in 2003 and his Ph.D. in Multi-Viewer Virtual Reality Systems, which he defended this past semester. If you're curious about graduate school or 3D graphics, this talk is for you.

When: 4pm, February 26, 5

Where: Fenton Hall, Room 105