Character Interaction System with Autostereoscopic Display and Range Sensor

Many types of autostereoscopic displays have been developed. With these displays, users do not require any special glasses to view 3-D images, so they save users trouble and show 3-D images in a natural situation. We have been researching about an autostereoscopic display, which displays objects in 3-D as if they exist in the real world. We designed our display, which is based on integral photography (IP) (Lippman, 1908), to make autostereoscopic images more realistic. We extended the IP concept to display not only still images but also videos. We named our concept integral videography (IV) (Liao et al., 2002). To demonstrate a possible application of this concept, we developed a character interaction system consisting of a range sensor (for 3-D input) and an IV display (for 3-D output). In this system, any virtual 3-D object on the screen moves around and responds to user input interactively. User input should not involve pushing buttons but be achieved through natural body movement because the virtual 3-D object "exists" in the real world. So we use the ultrasonic range sensors to sense the body movements. We adopt a Tamagotchi character as 3-D moving object, which moves around in a 3-D park. When a user extends a hand toward it, it notices and moves to the front of the park to greet him or her.