Virtual Tourism System Using Panoramic Video Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current virtual tourism solutions lack immersion and resource efficiency, as they often require dedicated cameras for single users and do not effectively simulate the experience for the elderly, sick, or those with mobility issues.
Innovation Solution
A virtual tourism system comprising a client device with a detector to track user viewing direction and a server-side device that selects and plays corresponding panoramic video image data, allowing multiple users to share resources and enhance immersion by dynamically updating the video feed based on user movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If remote-controlled cameras are used for virtual tourism, then users can view tourism scenes, but resources are wasted because one camera group can only serve one user
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies universality by enabling a single camera group to serve multiple users simultaneously through panoramic video capture. The camera system captures 360-degree views that can be distributed to multiple client devices, allowing one physical camera setup to function as multiple virtual cameras for different users.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments the panoramic video feed into multiple directional views corresponding to different user viewing angles. Each user receives a customized video stream based on their detected head orientation, dividing the single panoramic capture into multiple personalized perspectives without requiring separate camera hardware for each user.
2Ease of operation
If dedicated cameras are allocated to each user, then each user gets personalized viewing, but hardware complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates virtual copies of the camera view for each user by processing the single panoramic capture into multiple personalized video streams. Instead of providing physical camera hardware to each user, the system generates software-based view copies that simulate dedicated camera perspectives for each user based on their individual viewing directions.
3Productivity
If panoramic video data is processed in real-time for multiple users, then resource efficiency improves, but server processing load increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by capturing the complete panoramic video scene once and pre-processing it into multiple directional view components. This upfront capture and segmentation allows the server to efficiently distribute pre-prepared video segments to multiple users without performing heavy real-time processing for each user, reducing ongoing server computational burden.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a virtual tourism method which includes: detecting, by a virtual tourism client device, a change of a viewing direction of a user in real time, generating viewing direction information of the user according to the change of the viewing direction, wherein the viewing direction change is a change of a current viewing direction of the user with respect to a reference viewing direction; and obtaining, a part of video image data corresponding to the current viewing direction of the user from stored panoramic video image data according to the viewing direction information of the user and playing the part of the video image data.