Encoding, Exchange and Manipulation of Captured Immersive VR Sessions for Learning Environments: the PRISMIN Framework

Abstract

Capturing immersive VR sessions performed by remote learners using head-mounted displays (HMDs) may provide valuable insights on their interaction patterns, virtual scene saliency and spatial analysis. Large collected records can be exploited as transferable data for learning assessment, detect unexpected interactions or fine-tune immersive VR environments. Within the online learning segment, the exchange of such records among different peers over the network presents several challenges related to data transport and/or its decoding routines. In the presented work, we investigate applications of an image-based encoding model and its implemented architecture to capture users’ interactions performed during VR sessions. We present the PRISMIN framework and how the underneath image-based encoding can be exploited to exchange and manipulate captured VR sessions, comparing it to existing approaches. Qualitative and quantitative results are presented in order to assess the encoding model and the developed open-source framework.