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Camera movement for chasing a subject with unknown behavior based on real-time viewpoint goodness evaluation

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Abstract

We propose a method that automatically generates a smooth chase camera movement to follow a subject, a user-controlled character or a character with unknown behaviors, in a 3D environment freely in real time. We consider three objectives in generating the smooth-camera movement: to avoid collisions with obstacles, to avoid subject occlusions, and to choose a good viewpoint for looking at the subject. We evaluate the goodness of viewpoints by using a viewpoint entropy map and choose the best viewpoint as the goal position of the camera in real time. Afterwards, we move the camera toward the goal position by following the shortest path, found by the A* algorithm, on a roadmap graph. The resulting camera movement has a high degree of freedom and fulfills the three objectives above. Our method is effective for third-person-view 3D applications in tracking the real-time movement of user-controlled characters in exploring a 3D environment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Human Interface Engineering Lab., Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, 565-0871, Suita, Osaka, Japan

    Maya Ozaki & Shinya Kitaoka

  2. Advanced Computing, Institute of High Performance Computing, Fusionopolis 1 Fusionopolis Way, 138632, Singapore, Republic of Singapore

    Like Gobeawan

  3. Sharp Corporation, 22-22 Nagaike-cho, 545-8522, Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan

    Hirofumi Hamazaki

  4. Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, 2-1-1 Katahira, 980-8577, Aoba-ku, Sendai, Japan

    Yoshifumi Kitamura

  5. Computer Science, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, 100 Institute Road, 01609-2280, Worcester, MA, USA

    Robert W. Lindeman

Authors
  1. Maya Ozaki
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  2. Like Gobeawan
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  3. Shinya Kitaoka
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  4. Hirofumi Hamazaki
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  5. Yoshifumi Kitamura
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  6. Robert W. Lindeman
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Correspondence to Maya Ozaki.

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Ozaki, M., Gobeawan, L., Kitaoka, S. et al. Camera movement for chasing a subject with unknown behavior based on real-time viewpoint goodness evaluation. Vis Comput 26, 629–638 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-010-0489-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00371-010-0489-z

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