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Description: This application combines real-time video or other image
sensor data with solids models of an object or complex physical system
to create a CyberScene. This combined dataset provides users an
immersive virtual environment that can be explored in real time.
Typical applications include exploration via telepresence of dangerous,
small or large scale or otherwise inaccessible physical locations for
example, reactor cores, deep sea vents, manufacturing floors, inside
of human body, etc. A system with 
high-resolution (
pixel) input video streams (these video or other arrayed sensor data
most likely will come from highly integrated array cameras) requires a
terabit per second (Tbps) of input bandwidth and would be used to
computationally reconstruct a 
voxel 3D CyberScene object.
This object will be merged with any available CAD or solid model of the
physical system. These CAD or solids models may be based on 3D laser
scans or other active scanning databases but we do not consider the
data or computational requirements for active scanning here. We
estimate real-time voxel reconstruction to require on the order of a
- floating point operations per voxel per second and
10-
communications events. Communications events are needed for
merging multiple pixels into a single 3D pixel (voxel). Existing 3D
image reconstruction systems are limited to a small number of depth
planes; therefore, we increase the number of input sources to improve
the number of depth planes in the final reconstructed 3D image to
provide uniform spatial resolution of the CyberScene. Output bandwidth
requirements depend on the number of users. We estimate 100 users
would require a Tbps of output bandwidth to provide for 100
high-resolution 3D immersive displays (CAVE or high resolution head mounted
displays).
System Requirements: This application requires a
PetaFLOPS computer system with between and processors.
Global communication is required since voxel reconstruction requires
parallel FFTs and/or wavelets and correlation and registration of
multiple image planes. Global communication is required for image
registration; global sums are needed for FFTs, correlation, etc. Total
primary storage of 
bytes is required. Multiple seconds
of image data are required to be in primary storage for motion
estimation while motion parallax extraction requires O(
)
bytes, and underlying 3D solids model will require O(
) bytes,
and additional primary memory is needed for buffer space for secondary
store. The PetaFLOPS system requires significant real-time I/O
capability both for user data streams but also for archival storage of
cyberspace events. Secondary storage will be used for both archiving
input directly, but also for recording and playback of events (e.g.,
multiple Tbps to secondary store is needed). Secondary store capacity
needs to be in the range of 10-100 petabytes. The algorithms for
CyberScene reconstruction can use computer systems with rather deep
memory hierarchies; however, it is not clear that this application can
make use of SIMD architectures.
Impact: CyberScene capability can have a broad economic
impact. The potential uses include: telepresence for dangerous
environment work (reactors, contamination zones, biological hazards and
deep sea construction, mining), simulation and training of workers for
complex manufacturing environments (highly automated assembly lines),
entertainment and education, mass participation in remote space
exploration activities (space station, lunar and mars based
environments), 3D high-end telecommuting, and merging of VR with RR.
Next: Algorithmic Issues for
Up: Exemplar Applications
Previous: Database Queries.