A Video-texture based Approach for Realistic Avatars of Co-located Users in Immersive Virtual Environments using Low-cost Hardware

Abstract

Representing users within an immersive virtual environment is an essential functionality of a multi-person virtual reality system. Especially when communicative or collaborative tasks must be performed, there exist challenges about realistic embodying and integrating such avatar representations. A shared comprehension of local space and non-verbal communication (like gesture, posture or self-expressive cues) can support these tasks. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach to create realistic, video-texture based avatars of colocated users in real-time and integrate them in an immersive virtual environment. We show a straight forward and low-cost hard- and software solution to do so. We discuss technical design problems that arose during implementation and present a qualitative analysis on the usability of the concept from a user study, applying it to a training scenario in the automotive sector.