Virtualized reality: constructing time-varying virtual worlds from real world events

Virtualized reality is a modeling technique that constructs full 3D virtual representations of dynamic events from multiple video streams. Image-based stereo is used to compute a range image corresponding to each intensity image in each video stream. Each range and intensity image pair encodes the scene structure and appearance of the scene visible to the camera at that moment, and is therefore called a visible surface model (VSM). A single time instant of the dynamic event can be modeled as a collection of VSMs from different viewpoints, and the full event can be modeled as a sequence of static scenes-the 3D equivalent of video. Alternatively, the collection of VSMs at a single time can be fused into a global 3D surface model, thus creating a traditional virtual representation out of real world events. Global modeling has the added benefit of eliminating the need to hand-edit the range images to correct errors made in stereo, a drawback of previous techniques. Like image-based rendering models, these virtual representations can be used to synthesize nearly any view of the virtualized event. For this reason, the paper includes a detailed comparison of existing view synthesis techniques with the authors' own approach. In the virtualized representations, however, scene structure is explicitly represented and therefore easily manipulated, for example by adding virtual objects to (or removing virtualized objects from) the model without interfering with real event. Virtualized reality, then, is a platform not only for image-based rendering but also for 3D scene manipulation.