Keywords
Virtual
Studio, 3-D Reconstruction, Virtual Production, 3-D Programmes,
Shape Representation, Shape from Silhouette
|
Abstract
Virtual
production for broadcast is currently mainly used
in the form of virtual studios, where the resulting
media is a sequence of 2-D images. With the steady
increase of 3-D computing power in home PC's and
the technical progress in 3-D display technology,
the content industry is looking for new kinds of
programme material, which makes use of 3-D technology.
The applications range from analysis of sport scenes,
3DTV, up to the creation of fully immersive content.
In a virtual studio a camera films one or more actors
in a controlled environment. The pictures of the
actors can be segmented very accurately in real time
using chroma keying techniques. The isolated silhouette
can be integrated into a new synthetic virtual environment
using a studio mixer. The resulting shape description
of the actors is 2-D so far. For the realisation
of more sophisticated optical interactions of the
actors with the virtual environment, such as occlusions
and shadows, an objectbased 3-D description of scenes
is needed. However, the requirements of shape accuracy,
and the kind of representation, differ in accordance
with the application.
This
contribution gives an overview of requirements and
approaches for the generation of an object-based
3-D description in various applications studied by
the BBC R&D department. An enhanced Virtual Studio
for 3-D programmes is proposed that covers a range
of applications for virtual production.
This
document was originally an invited paper presented
at SPIE conference on 'Videometrics and Optical Methods
for 3D Shape Measurement', 22-23 Jan.2001, San Jose,
USA. |
