Extramission: A Large Scale Interactive Virtual Environment Using Head Mounted Projectors and Retro-reflectors

Abstract

We present Extramission, a method to a large scale interactive virtual environment. It consists of dual head mounted pico projectors and retro-reflective materials. With high-accuracy retro-reflective materials, laser beams scanned on user’s retina makes clear and free-focus vision. In this retinal scanning configuration, even if the luminance of the projector is low, scanned images can be seen clearly, which helps to evade overlaps between projected images. Due to small overlaps, Extramission can provide multi-user virtual experiences showing different images to each individual, and dual pico projectors can provide each user with stereoscopic vision. Moreover, the tolerance of low luminance allows larger distance between users and retro-reflectors, which is required for large scale virtual experiences using head mounted projectors. In this paper, we describe the principle and the implementation of Extramission. We also see its performance of displaying images.