An Immersive Telepresence System Using a Real-Time Omnidirectional Camera and a Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Display

Current telepresence systems are limited by the use of standard, narrow angle of view cameras. By using an Omni directional camera, an improved visual telepresence system is achieved. This work presents a more immersive visual experience using the Omni directional Panoptic camera in combination with a modern, low cost virtual reality head-mounted display. The camera system and its video data format are briefly described. The presented system is capable of broadcasting the Omni directional live stream via network connection. The system consists of the Panoptic camera as the acquisition device, a personal computer providing server support, and a head-mounted display connected to a client computer. The server and the client application that create a virtual environment from the video data are presented and the test setup is shown. Finally, a video example of the system´s real-time operation is provided.