Virtual Environment Studio expands capabilities with new technology

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campus experience 2:39 Virtual Environment Studio expands capabilities with new technology

By:

Chase Parker

12 Oct 2022 331

The Virtual Environment Studio, located on the fourth floor of Newman Library, has added motion capture and volumetric capture technology. The new equipment gives the Virginia Tech community further access to emerging technology for learning and research in immersive environments.

We just recently added a motion capture system. It's a 16 camera motion capture system from OptiTrack. And it's set up in our sort of advanced research space. So we're hoping to have a lot more opportunities for students to capture and produce their own animations. The motion capture system that you see in most movies, like The Avatar movie, the Spider-Man movies, it actually uses the OptiTrack system a lot of the times. So it's that same marker recognition. And then it is then with their movies specific CGI. We place the markers at, I believe it's 37 different points on the body. So that's usually on each joint, one on every kind of like part of your limbs. So like upper leg, lower leg, that kind of thing. Every single one of those markers is coated in like a reflective material and it's designed to be very reflective. And so the cameras, instead of searching for any type of movement, they're only looking for the movement of that specific reflective material. And so that helps it narrow it down to just the suit with the markers that have been specifically placed, instead of picking up every piece of movement all around the room. We've also been working on a volumetric capture system. So we've got a number of, I think we're at like ten Azure cameras from Mic