Incorporating Dynamic Real Objects Into Immersive Virtual Environments
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Incorporating Dynamic Real Objects into Immersive Virtual Environments Benjamin Lok Samir Naik, Mary Whitton, Frederick P. Brooks Jr. University of North Carolina at Charlotte University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill [email protected] [naiks, whitton, brooks]@cs.unc.edu Abstract In the assembly verification example, the ideal VE system would have the participant fully believe he was actually Suppose one has a virtual model of a car engine and wants to performing a task. Parts and tools would have mass, feel real, and use an immersive virtual environment (VE) to determine whether handle appropriately. The user would interact with every object both a large man and a petite woman can readily replace the oil as if he would if he were doing the task. The virtual objects filter. This real world problem is difficult to solve efficiently with would in turn respond to the user’s action appropriately. Training current modeling, tracking, and rendering techniques. Hybrid and simulation would be optimal [Sutherland 1965]. environments, systems that incorporate real and virtual objects In current VEs, almost all objects in the environment are within the VE, can greatly assist in studying this question. virtual. But both assembly and servicing are hands-on tasks, and We present algorithms to allow virtual objects to interact with the principal drawback of virtual models — that there is nothing and respond to virtual representations, avatars, of dynamic real there to feel, to give manual affordances, and to constrain motions objects. This allows dynamic real objects, such as the user, tools, — is a serious one for these applications. Using a six degree-of- and parts, to be visually and physically incorporated into the VE. freedom (DOF) wand to simulate a wrench, for example, is far The system uses image-based object reconstruction and a volume- from realistic, perhaps too far to be useful. Imagine trying to querying mechanism to detect collisions and to determine simulate a task as basic as unscrewing an oil filter from a car plausible collision responses between virtual objects and the real- engine in such a VE! time avatars. This allows our system to provide the user natural Interacting with purely virtual objects imposes several limiting interactions with the VE. factors on VEs. First, it limits the types of feedback the system We have begun a collaboration with NASA Langley Research can provide to the user, such as constraints and haptics and a Center to apply the hybrid environment system to a satellite visually faithful virtual representation, its avatar. Second, it payload assembly verification task. In an informal case study, hampers real objects (including the user), naturally interacting NASA LaRC payload designers and engineers conducted with virtual objects. common assembly tasks on payload models. The results suggest We extend our definition of an avatar to include a virtual that hybrid environments could provide significant advantages for representation of any real object. These real-object avatars are assembly verification and layout evaluation tasks. registered with the real object and ideally have the same shape, appearance and motion as the real object. CR Categories: H.5.2 (Information Interfaces and Presentation): Getting shape, motion, and actions from real objects, such as User Interfaces – Haptic I/O; I.3.7 (Computer Graphics): Three- the user’s hand, specialized tools, or parts, requires specific Dimensional Graphics and Realism – Virtual reality; I.6.0 development for modeling, tracking, and interaction. The (Simulation and Modeling): General. required additional development effort, coupled with the difficulties of object tracking and modeling, lead designers to use Keywords: interactions in virtual environments, collision few real objects in most VEs. Further, there are also restrictions detection, mixed reality on the types of real objects that can be incorporated into a VE. For example, highly deformable objects, such as a bushy plant, 1. Introduction would be especially difficult to model and track. Working with virtual objects could hinder training and 1.1. Motivation performance in tasks that require haptic feedback and natural affordances. For example, training with complex tools would Conducting design evaluation and assembly feasibility understandably be more effective with using real tools as opposed evaluation tasks in immersive virtual environments (VEs) enables to virtual approximations. designers to evaluate and validate multiple alternative designs more quickly and cheaply than if mock-ups are built and more 1.2. Incorporating Real Objects thoroughly than can be done from drawings. Design review has become one of the major productive applications of VEs [Brooks We believe a system that could handle dynamic real objects 1999]. Virtual models can be used to study the following would assist in interactivity and provide visually faithful virtual important design questions: representations. We define dynamic objects as real objects that • Can an artifact readily be assembled? can deform, change topology, and change appearance. Examples • Can repairers readily service it? include a socket wrench set, clothing, and the human hand. For assembly verification tasks, the user, tools, and parts are typically dynamic in shape, motion, and appearance. For a substantial class of VEs, incorporating dynamic real objects would be provides improved affordance matching and tactile feedback. We define incorporating real objects as being able to see and have virtual objects react to the virtual representations of real lok Page 1 10/24/2002 objects. The challenges are visualizing the real objects within the Prebuilt models are usually not available for specific real VE and managing the interactions between the real and the virtual objects. Making measurements and then using a modeling objects. package is laborious for complex static objects, and near We feel that spatial cognitive manual tasks would benefit with impossible for capturing all the degrees of freedom of complex increased task performance and presence from incorporating real dynamic objects. objects. These tasks require problem solving through Creating a virtual version of a real scene has many manipulating and orientating objects while maintaining mental applications. For example, capturing 3-D models of archeological relationships among them. These are common skills required in sites, sculptures, and objects allows new methods of education, simulation and training VEs. By having the real objects visualization, and exploration [Levoy et al. 2000]. Generating interacting with a virtual model, designers can see if there is novel views of sporting events from several cameras were used to enough space to reach a certain location or train people in enhance television coverage of Superbowl XXXV [Baba et al. assembling a model at different stages, all while using real parts, 2000]. The Office of the Future project, described by Raskar et real tools, and the variability among participants. al., generates 3-D models of participants from multiple camera Today, neither standard tracking technologies nor modeling images [1998] for telecommunications techniques are up to doing this in real time at interactive rates. Real-time algorithms simplify the object reconstruction by restricting the inputs, making simplifying assumptions, or 1.3. Approach accepting output limitations. This allows the desired model to be computed at interactive rates. We use a hybrid environment system that uses image-based For example, the 3-D Tele-Immersion reconstruction object reconstruction algorithms to generate real-time virtual algorithm by Daniilidis, et al., restricts the reconstructed volume representations, avatars, of real objects. The participant sees both size and number of input cameras so that usable results can be himself and any real objects introduced into the scene visually computed in real time using their dense-stereo algorithm [2000]. incorporated into the VE. Further, the participant handles and For some applications, precise models of real objects are not feels the real objects while interacting with virtual objects. necessary. One simplification is to compute approximations of The system models each object as the visual hull derived from the objects’ shapes, such as the visual hull. A shape-from- multiple camera views, and then texture-maps onto the visual hull silhouette concept, the visual hull, for a set of objects and set of n the lit appearance of the real object. The resulting virtual cameras, is the tightest volume that can be obtained by examining representations or avatars are visually combined with virtual only the object silhouettes, as seen by the cameras [Laurentini objects with correct obscuration. 1994]. We then developed algorithms to use the virtual At SIGGRAPH 2000, Matusik, et al., presented an image- representations in virtual lighting and in physically based based visual hull algorithm, “Image Based Visual Hulls” (IBVH), mechanics simulations. This includes new collision-detection and which uses image-based rendering (IBR) algorithms to calculate collision-response algorithms that exploit graphics hardware for the visual hull at interactive rates [2000]. Further, the IBVH computing results in real time. This type of interaction allows the algorithm computes visibility, coloring, and creating polygonal real-object avatars to affect simulations such as particle systems, models of visual hulls [2001]. cloth simulations, and rigid-body dynamics.