CyberCity and CyberMonuments

Applications of virtual reality

Frederic LEYMARIE
R&D Project Manager
 Thomson-CSF/Syseca, France and
 LEMS/Brown University, USA
Email: leymarie@lems.brown.edu

Michael GRUBER
Head of Object Reconstruction Group
ICG - Technical University of Graz (Austria)
 Email: gruber@icg.tu-graz.ac.at

Presentation Summary

It is strongly believed that early in the next century most, if not all, Human-Computer Interactions (HCI) will involve some degree of Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) through multimodal interfaces (3D dynamic vision, 3D sound, vocal recognition, etc.). In regard to these new interactive modalities, the need for realistic and faithful 3D rendition of existing scenery, possibly augmented with some artificial objects (animated as well as non-animated) is already emerging from different fields: architecture, electronic publishing, training, urban planning, virtual tourism, etc. At the moment, the industry is still waiting for systems that will allow efficient production of such 3D realistic and faithful models. It is worth noticing that many VR companies, most of them involved in the production of computer systems allowing immerse HCI, are having difficulty with the growth of their market (e.g. the recent demise of many VR cites in Europe). We believe that enabling of the efficient production of 3D scenery will be a major factor in boosting the VR European market growth potential.

One of the most spectacular applications of VR/AR deals with the possibility of presenting realistic architectural structures, projects or designs. If realism is added by inserting a new design in an existing setting, such VR/AR applications reproduce as no other medium the sense of space which is essential for the understanding of architecture and its impact on the surrounding environment. In this respect virtual visits can give new presentation standards for architecture and can also make it attractive and understandable for non specialists, i.e., to people unable to read technical drawings.

The percentage of world population living in cities is still growing. Within the next 20 years, it is expected that more than 50% of the people will live in densely populated urban areas (close to 75% in industrialised countries). The associated continuous growth of the built environment (buildings, houses, road and energy networks, transit systems, etc.) should benefit from new Information Technologies (IT). These shall permit better planning, design, engineering and deliverance of the evolution necessary for the built environment. Furthermore, the present day economical impact of the construction of the built environment is formidable: it represents close to half of the capital investment in most of the Member States.

In this presentation we will introduce the key concepts for two complementary interactive multimedia information systems we call CyberMonument and CyberCity:

• A CyberMonument provides access and use of tools for authoring and distributing multi-dimensional and multimedia databases of interiors and exteriors of (famous) architectural sites such as historical buildings, monuments, cathedrals, etc..
• A CyberCity provides authoring tools for photo-realistic visits and tele-use of large 3D urban multimedia databases in a pan-European telematics context.

We will thus present an overview of the new IT required to produce CyberMonuments and CyberCities and their application in the domain of VR or AR to better tackle the associated complexities of urban planning in the European metropolis of tomorrow.

A Few Words About The Author

Frederic Leymarie graduated in electronic engineering, specialisation: aeronautics, from "Ecole Polytechnique" in Montreal, Canada (1986). He also completed a thesis at McGill University in Montreal, in 1990. He has published research papers in IEEE Transactions on PAMI, Academic Press' CVGIP, and different International Conferences in the field of Image Processing. Within the scope of his thesis he built a software prototype for a complete image processing system for the tracking and shape analysis of live human cells (e.g. neutrophils).

In 1991 he was with the Mathematical Morphology Centre of "Ecole des Mines de Paris" in Fontainebleau, France. From late 1991 to early 1994 he went back to McGill University (Montreal, Canada) as a research engineer within the Centre for Intelligent Machines, a world-class research laboratory in the field of Artificial Intelligence. There he conducted a research program in the area of computer vision for mobile robots with an emphasis on shape description of surfaces.

In mid-1994 he joined the GIIS department of SYSECA as a project and system engineer and specialist in image processing within the R&D group. He is now a project manager and his work focuses on the fields of Imaging and GIS applications for environment telematics, 3D scene reconstruction from image data and information systems for photo-interpretation.