The Blue-C: Integrating Real Humans into a Networked Immersive Environment

In this paper, we report ongoing work in a new project, The BlueC. The goal of this project is to build a collaborative, immersive virtual environment which will eventually integrate real humans, captured by a set of video cameras. Two Blue-C.s will be interconnected via a high-speed network. This will allow for bi-directional collaboration and interaction between two persons sharing virtual spaces. The video streams are used for both texture and geometry extraction. We will generate a 3-D light field inlay enriched with the reconstructed geometry, which will be integrated into the virtual environment. The design and construction of the Blue-C. environment, including both hardware and software, is an interdisciplinary effort with participants from the departments of computer science, architecture, product development, and electrical engineering. Parallel to the development of the core system, we are designing new applications in the areas of computer aided architectural design, product reviewing, and medicine, which will highlight the versatility of the Blue-C.