Video and Virtual Reality
Another major research theme for Prof. Gross relates to the design of systems and algorithms for virtual reality, immersive 3D video, and telepresence systems, developed long before concepts like the Metaverse or widespread VR/AR became mainstream. A major milestone in his work was the design and implementation of blue-c project (blue-c.ethz.ch). This large interdisciplinary research initiative targeted at building an immersive projection and 3D video acquisition system for collaborative work over long distances. Prof. Gross and his team at ETH built a worldwide unique system and received very much international recognition. Gross' design includes a hardware setup consisting of 3 custom-built LCD projectors, actively shuttered projection walls, 16 cameras, pulsed LED lighting units, hardware synchronization, and cluster computing for 3D video and graphics. 20 Ph.D. students, postdocs and collaborators helped him to realize this vision. The system features a real-time 3D reconstruction and video transmission pipeline, full duplex speech and video as well as advanced communication and interaction. This project achieved the world's first full combination of immersive projection and 3D video transmission. As a technical milestone in this area, it continues to serve as an example for creative engineering in graphics and virtual reality. Prof. Gross and his students refined the newly created 3D video technology and developed a variety of algorithms for high-quality 3D video processing, rendering, and display. He also designed various camera-projector systems for per-pixel light control and developed interactive and intelligent display systems.
The continuous improvement of the underlying algorithms led to the creation of a startup company Liberovision. Acquired by Vizrt in 2012 and rebranded as "Viz Libero", this technology became a game-changer in sports analysis, now widely used by major broadcasters such as FOX, ESPN, ZDF, and Al Jazeera.