Virtual reality walkthrough of laser scanned environments

Abstract

Virtual reality has been continuously growing for a long time. The applications of virtual reality can range anywhere from industrial uses to entertainment, simulation and training.

There are numerous applications which would benefit from replicating an environment from the real world in the virtual reality. This has become possible with the development of surface reconstruction methods, laser scanning and virtual reality software and hardware. The required equipment has also become more affordable, even for personal use. There are many different methods and aspects to every part of the process.

This thesis explores the theory and practice of different steps of the whole pipeline from a real-world environment into virtual reality. The pipeline consists of scanning the environment, surface reconstruction from the scans, and the development of the virtual reality application. Existing methods, software and tools are used to achieve a functional virtual reality application, with an environment replicated from the real world. Different aspects of the process are discussed, and the results are analysed.