Controlling a virtual city fly-through by optical tracking of inline-skaters

1. Abstract

This article describes a project, which was carried out in the course of a scientific television show called "Science on Stage". Certain parts of the show featured inline-skaters, whose movements were tracked with techniques based on optical beacon tracking and visualised on a big video projection screen. By tracking one marker per skater movements were tracked in 3 degrees of freedom. These data values were converted into so-called "speed"- and "height" estimates which in turn were used to control a predefined "virtual-city" fly-through. In this way it was possible for the audience to recognise a direct relationship between the movements of the inline-skaters and the projected fly-through seen on the screen.

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