CRI: II-NEW: HoloCamera: An Immersive Gigapixel Cyberinstrument for Creating Precision Virtual Environments

University Of Maryland, College Park, College Park MD

Investigators

Abstract

Title: HoloCamera: An Immersive Gigapixel Cyberinstrument for Creating Precision Virtual Environments Virtual worlds need high-quality realism for effective use. The HoloCamera will meet these needs. Using several cameras and a computer cluster it will directly create dynamic virtual worlds. Users will be able to freely move about and observe these virtual worlds as if they were actually present there. The HoloCamera will advance the state of the art in light field capture and rendering, high-performance computing, and embedded signal processing. The facility will aid medical education and training, interactive imitation learning for robots, and capturing fluent sign-language use in native signers. Virtual and augmented reality offer exciting ways to educate students, particularly those from underrepresented groups in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.