The Centre aims to promote innovation and education
in the use of computer-based technologies for the production and analysis
of digital media. The goal is to link creative activity in the digital
arts with cutting-edge enabling technologies in computer science.
One application of the VideoTrace technology is in generating models of the objects in the real world in order to insert them into virtual environments. Examples might include modelling your car so that you can drive it in a game, or modelling an area for use in a simulation.
Virtual worlds such as Second Life and Home are limited by the object models they have available. The modelling process used to insert objects into these environments is typically either an arduous process requiring a great deal of time and skill, or so facile as to lack the power to create models of interest. The result is a virtual world full of objects made up of cubes and cylinders.
VideoTrace offers the opportunity to generate detailed texture-mapped models of real world objects simply and quickly. Inserting your couch into your virtual world requires only that you take a video of it and trace over its structure in VideoTrace.
