Michael Pocher Gesellschaft zur F"rderung angewandter Informatik e.V. Rudower Chaussee 5 12484 Berlin Germany E-mail: pocher@gfai.fta-berlin.de
Juergen Sieck FHTW Berlin-Lichtenberg Treskowallee 8 10313 Berlin Germany E-mail: sieck@fb1.fhtw-berlin.de
In the future, interactive computer technology will play an increasingly significant role in many areas of society and in the economy, not to mention in the presentation of goods and services. Developing and utilizing such technology is particulary important for a high-tech country. At our research institution we are conducting several projects involving the utilization of information technology and the integration of such into existing data-processing infrastructures. These projects aim to provide small and middle-size enterprises with inexpensive multimedia technology for the presentation of their products and services as well as for personnel training. We have focused our interests on examining which types of technology lend themselves to a wide variety of applications. Of particular interest is researching how different multimedia techniques can be combined and how to put our research results into practice.In the following contribution I will introduce a Planing and Presentation System designed for the multimedia planing of work, residential and recreation areas. The main emphasis of our research and development was the integration of a real enviroment, as depicted in a photo or in a video sequence, with artificially-produced, three-dimensional computer models. A critical problem that had to be resoved was how to project the 3D-models realistically so that they would fit into the perspective of the background photos. A new mulitmedia software package was developed allowing information to be extraced from background images. 3D-models constructed by means of a CAD-system can be superimposed upon these backgroung images in such a way that they conform to the viewerïs perspective.The advantages of such a system is that this process is easy to implement and, secondly, the artifical models can be calculated extremely quickly by means of a modified shadowing procedure.