Photo Based 3D Walkthrough

The objective of 'Photo Based 3D Walkthrough' is to understand how image-based
rendering technology is used to create virtual environment and to develop aprototype
system which is capable ofproviding real-time 3D walkthrough experience by solely
using 2D images. Photo realism has always been an aim of computer graphics in
virtual environment. Traditional graphics needs a great amount of works and time to
construct a detailed 3D model andscene. Despite the tedious works in constructing the
3D models andscenes, a lot ofefforts need to beput in to render the constructed 3D
models and scenes to enhance the level of realism. Traditional geometry-based
rendering systems fall short ofsimulating the visual realism of a complex environment
and are unable to capture and store a sampled representation ofa large environment
with complex lighting and visibility effects. Thus, creating a virtual walkthrough ofa
complex real-world environment remains one of the most challenging problems in
computer graphics. Due to the various disadvantages of the traditional graphics and
geometry-based rendering systems, image-based rendering (IBR) has been introduced
recently to overcome the above problems. In this project, a research will be carried out
to create anIBR virtual walkthrough by using only OpenGL and C++program without
the use of any game engine or QuickTime VR function. Normal photographs (not
panoramic photographs) are used as the source material in creating the virtual scene
and keyboard is used asthe main navigation tool in the virtual environment. The quality
ofthe virtual walkthrough prototype constructed isgood withjust a littlejerkiness.