Reality -> Cyberspace

Frank Paulsen (bc947201@bbar.dtu.dk)
Thu, 30 Nov 1995 13:19:03 +0100 (MET)


Have anybody given thoughts to the problems
appearing when you have to convert a
real place into VRML?

Which a the best way to minimalise
bandwidht and computer calculations?

Ok, first my background.

I am right now working on a project with
three other fellow students on Denmarks
Technical University, where we are assigned
on a project that cooperates a specific place
in Denmark into VRML.

The project is for Culture City '96, which is
Copenhagen, so the plan is everybody with an
internetconnection should view it.

We've contacted a danish ressource on this, called Lighthouse
but they use raytracing, and therefor don't have to
comprise.

Ok, we've come'd up with these thoughts:

Instead of building a complete house (the front),
it will be more usefull to scan it, and use it as
a texture. We've been told it wouldn't make any
difserens if we tile it, but what about the speed
of calculation.
At the same time this will provide another problem:
How will it look when moved. Textures is spplied last.

We also need shadows, so it won't seem to sterile.
Lighthouse suggested we used the textures for this.
For an example, Photoshop, can make lights
(highlights and shadows) on a 2D picture, but that
will make more texturing neccesary.

Yet, but maybe it would be more usefull to cut the lights, and calculate
the highlights and shadows into the texturing, thereby moving the
calculations from the lights to the textures.

Would it be possibel to make the shadows and highlights be transparent
objects in gesy or white?
Could they be made by difserent means of illumination from the
object itself?

This is only a small part of the problems, more will
be uncovered the farther we go.

There's about an infinity of possibilitys for solutions,
and we can't carry it all. Hopefully we are not the only one's
interested in this, and we hope for your backup.

I'm sorry we haven't had time to try it out ourself,
but right now i'm writing to the mailinglist for backup,
both because our software is down, bacause i think
it's a important problem and because we need your help.

Greeting on the ways of our group
Frank


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