AquaCAVE: Augmented Swimming Environment with Immersive Surround-Screen Virtual Reality

Author

Yamashita, Shogo and Zhang, Xinlei and Rekimoto, Jun

Abstract

AquaCAVE is a system for enhancing the swimming experience. Although swimming is considered to be one of the best exercises to maintain our health, swimming in a pool is normally monotonous; thus, maintaining its motivation is sometimes difficult. AquaCAVE is a computer-augmented swimming pool with rear-projection acrylic walls that surround a swimmer, providing a CAVE-like immersive stereoscopic projection environment. The swimmer wears goggles with liquid-crystal display (LCD) shutter glasses, and cameras installed in the pool tracks swimmer's head position. Swimmers can be immersed into synthetic scenes such as coral reefs, outer space, or any other computer generated environments. The system can also provide swimming training with projections such as record lines and swimming forms as 3D virtual characters in the 3D space.