Section: Application Domains

Physical Systems

Given our close relationships with researchers in optics, one novelty of our approach is to extend the range of possible observers to physical sensors in order to work on domains such as simulation, mixed reality, and testing. Capturing, processing, and visualizing complex data is now more and more accessible to everyone, leading to the possible convergence of real and virtual worlds through visual signals. This signal is traditionally captured by cameras. It is now possible to augment them by projecting (e.g., the infrared laser of Microsoft Kinect) and capturing (e.g., GPS localization) other signals that are outside the visible range. This supplemental information replaces values traditionally extracted from standard images and thus lowers down requirements in computational power. Since the captured images are the result of the interactions between light, shape, and matter, the approaches and the improved knowledge from MANAO help in designing interactive acquisition and rendering technologies that are required to merge the real and the virtual worlds. With the resulting unified systems (optical and digital), transfer of pertinent information is favored and inefficient conversion is likely avoided, leading to new uses in interactive computer graphics applications, like augmented reality, displays and computational photography.