Live Events Accessing for Multi-users with Free Viewpoints Using Stereo Omni-directional System

In the Internet based live events accessing system, user interactions, such as changing a viewpoint or tracking an object, is an important aspect to be developed. This paper proposes a method to support live events accessing for multi-users with the ability to choose free viewpoints, using the stereo omni-directional system (SOS), which we have developed. This system can acquire all directional color images and stereo image pairs in real time. All cameras on this system operate simultaneously, and all images can be obtained synchronously. Using these images, we generate a VRML model of a 3D spherical representation of the live events. Users can manipulate the VRML model to view the events from a preferred viewpoint, and the images are updated at a rate which is nearly real-time.