A new immersive video technology that debuts this summer will let viewers navigate an enveloping sphere of video.
Co-developed by Immersive Media and Enroute Imaging, the RoundAbout Immersive Video System goes a step beyond virtual reality by displaying video, rather than static, images.
Intel is using the RoundAbout system to show off its new Pentium III, and a Los Angeles production company is busy preparing demos of immersive movies and interactive advertising.
The developers envision the system as a precursor to immersive 3-D television. But to their dismay, the US military forces see its future in cruise missiles.
Instead of panning a static photograph, the RoundAbout system allows viewers to navigate a sphere of live action video. Users can pause, rewind, and zoom in and out of a scene. Scenes can be linked to create interactive tours of, say, a museum, or nonlinear movies.
The 12-pound system, designed by Immersive Media of Portland, Oregon, clusters 11 video cameras in a device the size of a small soccer ball to simultaneously capture action in all directions. Using software from Enroute Imaging of Palo Alto, California, the separate video streams are then stitched together to create a single, high-resolution video sphere.
Viewers can navigate a RoundAbout video on a PC, using a Windows plug-in from Enroute. But the spherical videos are most effective when projected onto the dome-shaped overhead screens at planetariums or viewed with virtual reality headsets.
"It's like being transported to a different location," said Kelley Peters, vice president of sales and marketing at eVox Productions, the Los Angeles-based production company experimenting with the system. "You're in a 3-D world on a 2-D screen.... You get a very immersive experience just looking at your desktop."
Intel will likely use the system next month at Spring Internet World '99 in Los Angeles to demonstrate the power of its Pentium III chip. Intel has created an immersive tour of an Oregon resort. Linked scenes allow viewers to roam the resort's hotel, explore its golf course, and see what items are on the restaurant's menu.
"Instead of a company sending out static brochures, they can put an interactive tour on a DVD or CD-ROM and pop that in the mail," said Ted Zurcher, an Intel marketing programs manager.
