Towards a distributed reality: a multi-video approach to xR

In this article we define the concept of Distributed Reality, a new form of immersive media based on the combination of captured realities (e.g a remote and a local one), hence with a strong focus on video. While Virtual Reality fully substitutes the real surrounding with a simulation and all existing variations of Mixed Reality just provide additional synthetic elements into our visual field, our proposal is to capture and segment different scenes (one of them being the local one) in real time and merge the resulting elements dynamically, to create a completely new reality in front of the user senses. We compare this concept with prior art in the field and describe a taxonomy in which it fits.