Technologies for virtual tourism

Abstract

The world is full of attractions and wonders, other remains of old cultures. The cultural heritage is of high interest not only for educated people. But not all the potential interested people have the money or the physical ability to travel to remote areas. In many cases those people need to get some hints t get an imagination how those areas look like nowadays and if it was worth going there and have a close look at them. So far both reasons -to help people who do not have the physical or monetary ability to travel and -to initiate the interest to got to interesting places for people how can travel and need the appropriate background information, the means of virtual tourism are very helpful. (By the way, if you want the people to come and visit your historical places, you need to provide the appropriate infrastructure like food, shelter, travel conditions.) The talk is about the technologies necessary to support the virtual tourism: -Overview pictures and sequences produced by digital airborne cameras -Ground based outdoor panoramic views produced by stereo panoramic cameras -Indoor panoramic views produced by stereo panoramic cameras and laser scanners. The basic idea is: -to fly virtually over the region with all places of interest to get an overall picture of the general situation -Once the actual area of interest is selected diving down to that area and get an panoramic view of the complete area -Once the actual object of interest is selected, zoom from the panoramic view to a close up view for detailed investigation of the object from the front side. From this situation a couple of options shall be provided: oRotate the object in order to get an impression of the outside view from all possible perspectives ostep inside the object if possible and have panoramic views as well as close up views of all inside objects (halls, rooms, facilities).