Image-Based Pseudo-3D Visualization of Real Space on WWW

The conventional approaches for constructing real-space-based 3D space on WWW are costly much in initial modeling and in network access in its operation. The recent trend in such construction, i.e., the image-based rendering (IBR) approach, focuses on more convenient handling of the real space, but the obtained space is usually constrained by the difficulty in image analysis. In this paper, aiming at relaxing the modeling cost of the real space and the accessing cost on WWW, we propose a simple approach where we use scenic images such as those taken by a digital camera or a video camera without distorting them. By enlarging or shrinking an avatar image and pasting it on a background scenic image according to the user's input, we can visualize the depth of the scene as pseudo 3D space. We call the method the image-based nonrendering (IBNR), intended as an antithesis to IBR. In our system, we emphasize on two points: the scene independency, i.e., each scene is more independent of other scenes, and the platform independency, i.e., usual WWW browsers can be used in the walk-through of the space without extra plug-ins.