Simulating the experience of home environments

Growing evidence indicates that transitioning patients are often unprepared for the self-management role they must assume when they return home. Over the past twenty five years, LiDAR scanning has emerged as a fascinating technology that allows for the rapid acquisition of three dimensional data of real world environments while new virtual reality (VR) technology allows users to experience simulated environments. However, combining these two technologies can be difficult as previous approaches to interactively rendering large point clouds have generally created a trade-off between interactivity and quality. For instance, many techniques used in commercially available software have utilized methods to sub-sample data during interaction, only showing a high-quality render when the viewpoint is kept static. Unfortunately, for displays in which viewpoints are rarely static, such as virtual reality systems, these methods are not useful. This paper presents a novel approach to the problem of quality-interactivity trade-off through a progressive feedback-driven rendering algorithm. This technique uses reprojections of past views to accelerate the reconstruction of the current view and can be used to extend existing point cloud viewing algorithms. The presented method is tested against previous methods, demonstrating marked improvements in both rendering quality and interactivity. This algorithm and rendering application could serve as a tool to enable virtual rehabilitation within 3D models of one's own home from a remote location.