Integrating 2-D Video Actors into 3-D Augmented-Reality Systems

In this paper, we discuss the integration of 2-D video actors into 3-D augmentedreality (AR) systems. In the context of our research on narrative forms for AR, we have found ourselves needing highly expressive content that is most easily created by human actors. We discuss the feasibility and utility of using video actors in an AR situation and then present our Video Actor Framework (including the VideoActor editor and the Video3D Java package) for easily integrating 2-D videos of actors into Java 3D, an object-oriented 3-D graphics programming environment. The framework is based on the idea of supporting tight spatial and temporal synchronization between the content of the video and the rest of the 3-D world. We present a number of illustrative examples that demonstrate the utility of the toolkit and editor. We close with a discussion and example of our recent work implementing these ideas in Macromedia Director, a popular multimedia production tool.