Techniques for handling video in virtual environments

This paper discusses ways to incorporate video displays into virtual environments. It focuses on the virtual worlds created by a distributed multi-user simulator. Still images or video streams represent spaces within these three-dimensional worlds. The paper introduces techniques to deal with avatar movement into and out of video regions. In one technique—media melding—when an object moves from one region to another, the media used to represent that object correspondingly change. In a second technique—object tracing—when an object moves from one region to another, its actions in the second region are represented by a trace object in the first region. Pyramidic panels provide a means of dealing with viewpoint changes so that two-dimensional images and video clips can successfully simulate three-dimensional spaces. The paper concludes by suggesting ways to extend our techniques and by listing possible future studies