Multi-person tracking for virtual reality surrounding awareness

Virtual reality devices are designed to cover our vision so we are unaware of our surroundings and completely emerged into a different world. This limits VR user's ability to move freely in crowded areas, such as classrooms, which limits the user interactions in VR. We present a framework that enables VR users to see other people around them inside the VR environment with the help of an external 3D depth camera. The proposed framework enables multi-VR users to use one tracking camera and provides a cost-effective solution. The proposed framework can also help in performing collaborative activities.