PanoVR SDK—a software development kit for integrating photo-realistic panoramic images and 3-D graphical objects into virtual worlds

This paper proposes the software architecture and functions of a development kit for integrating photorealistic panoramic images with 3-D graphics objecfs in virtual worlds. In graphics-based virtual reality applications, the complexity of the modeled virtual worla5 dominates the rendering performance of systems. Therefore, many virtual reality applications usually require high-end graphics processors to achicwe a satisfactory rendering petiormance. By integrating photo-realistic panoramic images with 3-D graphics objects in virtual worla2, at least two major benefits can be obtained. First, building a virtual world becomes easier since designers do not have to build the models for each object in a scene. ‘Second, the worldcomplexity does not signt@antly affect the rendering performance. With the proposed software development kit, developers can easily elaborate their virtual reality products at lower costs while attaining photo-realistic image rendering qualities.