Multi-user natural interaction with sensor on activity

The quality of user interactions in virtual environments influence the richness of experiences derived. In many virtual environments, interactions are captured by external visual sensor(s) that observe the environment. This requires end user tracking, and extraction of interaction - a task neither scalable, nor easy to accomplish. We suggest associating a sensor with the interaction so that the human computer interaction information extraction becomes less difficult. We term this paradigm as sensor on activity, and we exhibit this paradigm in a scalable multi-user virtual shooting environment built using off-the-shelf components. Here, a sensor (camera) is attached to the activity (shooting). Tracking and inferring position and orientation of weapon, as in traditional setups, is not required any more. Our system is able to support firing at video frame rates. As the sensor need not be pre-configured, the virtual environment does not require instrumentation. Hence it can be easily ported to different locations and is accessible to masses.