A game engine-based multi-projection virtual environment with system-level synchronization

Abstract

In multi-projector displays, which surround users with high-resolution images, a PC-Cluster is often used for realistic and real-time image generation. However, developing applications that support parallel processing on the PC-Cluster is quite troublesome. It is also difficult to acquire sufficient rendering performance because of the limited bandwidth of the PC-Cluster. Therefore, we aim to achieve affordable and accessible software environments for the multi-projector displays. In this paper, we describe a self-distributing software environment for inheriting existent game engines which provide basic functions of realizing virtual environments. This environment achieves minimum data communication based on a master-slave model. The communication mechanism is automatically applied to target applications by intercepting APIs. Hence we can directly exploit high-capability of the existing game engines on the multi-projector displays.