Tree on Mars, an immersive virtual reality experience

Abstract

Tree on Mars is an Immersive Reality project, with the following story: the viewer is an astronaut who travels to Mars aiming to examine a tree found in the center of a crater. The project is to be viewed in the CaveH platform located at Centro de Ciência Viva at Lousal, and was developed in the context of the 3D programming curriculum of the Masters of Informatics Engineering - Multimedia of ISCTE-IUL in Lisbon. By definition, a Cave is an Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) system, which projects stereoscopic images with real scale dimensions [1]. In the CaveH case, the set-up is of a parallelepiped form and each face is a planar projection image, where the 3D effect comes from its stereoscopic projection.The scenario of Mars has one base facing the tree, a spaceship, a rock and an Explore Mars Rover, as shown in Figure 1. In this poster we will highlight the tools and 3D authoring techniques appropriate for real-time 3D rendering, in large scale immersive virtual reality settings. We will illustrate the various stages of development and the achieved results.