The 3DDI project is about direct interaction with simulated or remote 3D worlds. Users interact with the world without gloves or motion capture sensors and view the world stereoscopically without glasses. 3D interaction preserves the spatial relationships and body language cues among a group of people in ways that 2D video cannot. It also supports a strong form of direct interaction where humans see no interface at all, only 3d objects in the world.

The project involves 3 campuses and covers the technologies from real-time 3d capture through physical modeling, to rendering on autostereoscopic and volumetric displays. This talk will summarize the project, and give details of 3 of its components: real-time depth capture, physical behavior prototyping, and volumetric display. 3DDI is one of the seeds of a much larger effort at Berkeley toward Human-Centered Computing (HCC). I will talk about one other seed, which is strong telepresence through "PRoPs" or robot avatars, and then say something about what the rest of the HCC effort will comprise.