Automatically generating virtual guided tours

After the introduction of VRML, 3D Web browsing has become a popular form of networked virtual reality. However, it is still a great challenge for a novice user equipped with a regular desktop PC to navigate in most virtual worlds of moderate complexity. We think the main problem is due to the fact that a user usually uses a 2D mouse to provide low-level navigation control but the display frame rate is not high enough for this servo loop. We consider an alternative metaphor of allowing a user to specify locations of interests on a 2D-layout map and let the system automatically generate the animation of guided tours in virtual architectural environments. Specifically, we aim to generate animations of customizable tour paths and its associated human/camera motions in an on-line manner according to high-level user inputs. We describe an auto-navigation system, in which several efficient path-planning algorithms adapted from robotics are used. This system has been implemented in Java and adopts common VRML browsers as its 3D interface. We also use the geometric model of our departmental building as an example to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the system.