Building Customized Worlds Using "Virtualized Reality"

If today's virtual worlds seem too simplistic, consider the new visual medium of Virtualized Reality. It combines computer-generated images with scenes captured from the real world and allows the viewer to move about freely in this new environment. Under development at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute, "Virtualized Reality" scenarios are created in a hemispherical, dome-shaped studio containing more than 50 cameras positioned to cover an event from all sides. By combining their images in various ways, it's possible to create a three-dimensional description (3D CAD model) of the scene, even time varying scenes. Once the description is built, it can be manipulated and integrated with other scene descriptions, enabling viewers to insert themselves or other objects into the scene at any angle as the action takes place. "Virtualized Reality" is the creation of computer vision expert Takeo Kanade, director of the Robotics Institute, and his students. Kanade sees the new technology finding uses in entertainment and training -- for example, "watching" an NBA game from a vantage point inside the court, or enabling medical students at at several locations to virtually stand beside a famous surgeon performing an operation. The Virtualized Reality website is: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/VirtualizedR/www/VirtualizedR.html

Intelligent Bending Workstation Becomes a Commercial Product

A first-of-its-kind Intelligent Bending Workstation, developed at Carnegie Mellon~s Robotics Institute, is being commercialized by Japan-based Amada Co., Ltd., the world's largest sheet metal machine tool manufacturer. The system, which enables design-to-production of a variety of sheet metal parts in less than one-half hour, was developed by Senior Systems Scientist David A. Bourne, an expert in intelligent systems for automated manufacturing, and his research group. Bourne says the system considers a new part and determines what it needs to do to fabricate it. A process planner lets the user know exactly what tools, time and resources are needed.