Research Projects and Publications

I am very interested in Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality which combines  techniques from Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Tracking and Devices. I am also very interested in Gaming Technology, Special effects for movies using Computer Graphics and Computer Vision.

Interactive marker-less tracking of human limbs

The "Minority Report effect". Imagine if you can communicate with your computer by waving arms and other gestures. This research tries to achieve exactly that. See the paper for more details. Interactive marker-less tracking of human limbs. Rao S., Hodges L. F. Submitted to Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics. Our goal is to be able to track human hands and human legs motion without using any markers at interactive rates. We feel that marker-less tracking of human limbs can be very advantageous to virtual viewpoint videos, VR gaming, HCI and Telepresence.

Vision based Head Pose tracking for Virtual Reality environments.

Accurate 6DOF tracking of head position is the most essential part of a VR/AR environment. This work describes and inexpensive computer vision based technique to get the head position. Vision Based System for Head Pose Tracking in Indoor Immersive Environments - Rao S., Hodges L. F., Schmugge S. J. International Conference on Augmented Reality and Tele-existence - ICAT 2004, Korea. See the Video. This publication won an honorable mention at ICAT 2004. Our goal is to develop a scalable, very less costly and accurate head pose tracking system for INDOOR VR and AR environments. Our method involves looking a pattern projected on the floor (patterns from two projectors are registered to cancel shadows) using an IBot camera tied to user's back, looking down. We have compared the accuracy with Hiball Tracker and found that our tracking system gives registration error of 4mm and jitter less than 1mm - and the cost is very less because we are using only cheap cameras and projectors.

iLamps - projectors combined with computation

This research demonstrates how cluster of projectors can be used to create large seamless displays. It also demonstrates object-adaptive projection. iLamps: Geometrically Aware and Self-Configuring Projectors - Raskar R., Van Baar J., Beardsley P., Willwacher T., Rao S., Forlines C. SIGGRAPH 2003, 27-31 July, 2003, San Diego. (Patent pending). Kindly refer to web page for details.

Seamless multi-projector displays on curved screens

This research demonstrates how multiple projectors can be used to create seamless displays on curved screens. Seamless Multi-Projector Displays on Curved Screens - Raskar R., Van Baar J., Willwacher T., Rao S. International Immersive Projection Technologies Workshop & Euro graphics Workshop on Virtual Environments (IPT/EGVE 2003) .

Camera sensor network for people tracking inside buildings

This research shows how we can spread many inexpensive cameras all over the ceiling of a building and track people inside. Self-configuring, Lightweight Sensor Networks for Ubiquitous Computing, Wren, C.; Srinivasa, R., International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing (UBICOMP), pp. 205-206, September 2003.