Simulating Interaction Between Tracked Real-World Objects and User-Controlled Virtual Objects

In recent years, interest in correspondence between virtual environments and realworld events has grown considerably. We investigate different methods of integrating position and orientation data of moving real-world objects and individuals into a virtual environment, and of simulating their interaction with virtual objects and individuals. This simulation requires accurate measurements of positional data of dynamic real-world objects. This data is then represented in a virtual copy of the real-world environment. One or more user-controlled virtual objects are added and interaction with this environment is made possible. We investigate different ways of manipulating the avatars of real-world objects to simulate this interaction. Each such method must be guaranteed to smoothly recover to an exact copy of the real-world situation in all but the most extreme circumstances. An accurate prediction of both the future state of the real world and the users avatar is needed to plan these manipulations ahead of time. Different prediction methods are researched, for both the real-world objects and the user object. We give an overview of the flow and manipulation of information through a system that allows for such simulated interaction, and conclude that integration of and interaction with real-world objects in a virtual environment is very well possible, but that each application may have specific needs based on parameters such as relative velocity and maneuverability. This results in the necessity of selecting a specific solution for each individual stage of the information flow for each application.Computer ScienceComputer ScienceElectrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Scienc