An Investigation into Web-based Panoramic Video Virtual Reality with Reference to the Virtual Zoo Chen, Wu-Hsiung Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Awarded by De Montfort University Department of Imaging and Communication Design Faculty of Art and Design De Montfort University United Kingdom January 2010 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place I would like to record my gratitude to Dr. Gary Fozzard for his supervision, patience, enthusiasm, and guidance of this research as well as giving me extraordinary experiences through out the work. Above all and the most needed, he provided me unflinching encouragement and support in various ways. His true knowledge has made him as a constant oasis of ideas and passions in the research domains, which exceptionally inspired and enriched my growth as a student and made me want to be a researcher. I am indebted to him more than he knows. Gary, I am grateful in every possible way and hope to keep up our collaboration in the future. I gratefully acknowledge Mr. Nick Higgett for his supervision, advice, and crucial contribution, which made him a backbone of this research and so to this thesis. His involvement with his originality has triggered and nourished my intellectual maturity that I will benefit from, for a long time to come. Besides my supervisors, I would like to thank Dr. Jackie Hooley and Jason S.C. Chin who is researcher and educator working in the Twycross Zoo and the Taipei Zoo contributed to the research in knowledge of the zoological domain and to the production in contents of guidance. I particular thank to the Twycross Zoo as collaborator which gives the value of and benefit of the research. I also would like to acknowledge the scholarship provision of Taiwan’s Government. Without this support, my ambition to PhD study abroad could hardly be realized. Many thanks go into Mr. Robert Buttery, Mr. Suryakant Mistry, Mr. Mandy Stuart, and Mr. Tim Hall who work in the University and provided unlimited support. I am much indebted to Robert by his outstanding works and skill in handling precisely delicate equipments. The filming rig would not have been existed without him. I have also benefited by digital video camera setting and video editing from Slash who also always helping me in keeping the equipment for the research experiments even breaking regulation. Without Mandy’s always kindly grants me her time even for helping some of my unreasonable request, the research can’t be gone so smoothly. Tim, as a computer technician, was helping me a lot in resolving the facilities on software and hardware. Words fail me to express my appreciations to my wife Hsiu-Ying Cheng and to my daughter Wei Chen their dedication, love and persistent confidence in me, has taken the load off my shoulder. I would also thank my parents and family members for their thoughtful support. Last but not least, thanks be to God for my life through all tests in the past years. You have made my life more bountiful. May your name be exalted, honoured, and glorified. -i- ABSTRACT Panoramic image Virtual Reality (VR) is a 360 degree image which has been interpreted as a kind of VR that allows users to navigate, view, hear and have remote access to a virtual environment. Panoramic Video VR builds on this, where filming is done in the real world to create a highly dynamic and immersive environment. This is proving to be a very attractive technology and has introduced many possible applications but still present a number of challenges, considered in this research. An initial literature survey identified limitations in panoramic video to date: these were the technology (e.g. filming and stitching) and the design of effective navigation methods. In particular, there is a tendency for users to become disoriented during way- finding. In addition, an effective interface design to embed contextual information is required. The research identified the need to have a controllable test environment in order to evaluate the production of the video and the optimal way of presenting and navigating within the scene. Computer Graphics (CG) simulation scenes were developed to establish a method of capturing, editing and stitching the video under controlled conditions. In addition, a novel navigation method, named the “image channel” was proposed and integrated within this environment. This replaced hotspots: the traditional navigational jumps between locations. Initial user testing indicated that the production was appropriate and did significantly improve user perception of position and orientation over jump-based navigation. The interface design combined with the environment view alone was sufficient for users to understand their location without the need to augment the view with an on screen map. After obtaining optimal methods in building and improving the technology, the research looked for a natural, complex, and dynamic real environment for testing. The web-based virtual zoo (World Association of Zoos and Aquariums) was selected as an ideal production: It had the purpose to allow people to get close to animals in their natural habitat and created particular interest to develop a system for knowledge delivery, raising protection concerns, and entertaining visitors: all key roles of a zoo. The design method established from CG was then used to develop a film rig and production unit for filming a real animal habitat: the Formosan rock monkey in Taiwan. A web-based panoramic video of this was built and tested though user experience testing and expert interviews. The results of this were essentially identical to the testing done in the prototype environment, and validated the production. Also was successfully attracting users to the site repeatedly. The research has contributed to new knowledge in improvement to the production process, improvement to presentation and navigating within panoramic videos through the proposed Image Channel method, and has demonstrated that web-based virtual zoo can be improved to help address considerable pressure on animal extinction and animal habitat degradation that affect humans by using this technology. Further studies were addressed. The research was sponsored by Taiwan’s Government and Twycross Zoo UK was a collaborator. -ii- CONTENTS Chapter One: Introduction........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction................................................................................................ 1 1.2 Motivation................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Aims of the research ................................................................................... 4 1.4 Objectives of the research .......................................................................... 5 1.5 Outline of the thesis.................................................................................... 6 Chapter Two: Panorama Virtual Reality (VR) Overview........................................ 9 2.1 Introduction....................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Virtual Reality and Panorama VR ................................................................... 9 2.3 Advantage of Panorama VR compared to CG VR ........................................ 11 2.4 Panorama VR evolution .................................................................................. 12 2.4.1 Classification of Panorama VR by image display ...................................... 14 2.4.2 Static Panorama VR.................................................................................. 16 2.4.3 Video/s Panorama VR............................................................................... 20 2.4.3.1 Single Camera system....................................................................... 20 2.4.3.2 Multi Camera system........................................................................ 26 2.5 Advantages of dynamic over static images ..................................................... 29 2.6 Basic operation of Panorama VR.................................................................... 31 2.6.1 Panning..................................................................................................... 32 2.6.2 Zoom ........................................................................................................ 32 2.6.3 Hotspots.................................................................................................... 33 2.7 Characteristics of the Panoramic Video ......................................................... 35 2.7.1 A form of immersive video ....................................................................... 35 2.7.2 Presence – as a feeling of “being there”..................................................... 36 2.7.3 3D perception............................................................................................ 37 2.8 Application of web-based Panorama VR........................................................ 39 2.8.1 Tourism .................................................................................................... 39 2.8.2 Architecture .............................................................................................. 41 2.8.3 Heritage .................................................................................................... 43 2.8.4 Geography ...............................................................................................