ABSTRACT

A Hitchhiker's Guide to Virtual Reality brings together under one cover all the aspects of graphics, video, audio, and haptics that have to work together to make virtual reality a reality. Like any good guide, it reveals the practical things you need to know, from the viewpoint of authors who have been there. This two-part guide covers the science, technology, and mathematics of virtual reality and then details its practical implementation. The first part looks at how the interface between human senses and technology works to create virtual reality, with a focus on vision, the most important sense in virtual reality. The second part of the book is tightly integrated with an accompanying CD, which contains the programs for more than 30 virtual reality projects, ranging in scope from a tool that simulates virtual sculpting to a suite of software for the control of a four-projector immersive virtual environment.

chapter |2 pages

I What, Why and How

chapter 1|10 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|16 pages

The Human Senses and VR

chapter 3|16 pages

Applications and Implications of VR

chapter 4|42 pages

Building a Practical VR System

chapter 5|32 pages

Describing and Storing the VR World

chapter 6|28 pages

A Pocket 3D Theory Reference

chapter 7|34 pages

The Rendering Pipeline

chapter 8|38 pages

Computer Vision in VR

chapter 9|16 pages

Image-Based Rendering

chapter 10|22 pages

Stereopsis

chapter 11|32 pages

Navigation and Movement in VR

chapter 12|14 pages

Tools, Libraries and Templates for VR

chapter 13|50 pages

Programming 3D Graphics in Real Time

chapter 14|32 pages

High-Quality 3D with OpenGL 2

chapter 15|48 pages

Using Multimedia in VR

chapter 16|44 pages

Programming Stereopsis

chapter 17|30 pages

Programming Input and Force Feedback

chapter 18|30 pages

Building on the Basics, Some Projects in VR