Casual Real-World VR using Light Fields

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) would benefit from more end-to-end systems centered around a casual capturing procedure, high-quality visual results, and representations that are viewable on multiple platforms. We present an end-to-end system that is designed for casual creation of real-world VR content, using a smartphone. We use an AR app to capture a linear light field of a real-world object by recording a video sweep around the object. We predict multiplane images for a subset of input viewpoints, from which we extract high-quality textured geometry that are used for real-time image-based rendering suitable for VR. The round-trip time of our system, from guided capture to interactive display, is typically 1–2 minutes per scene.