ORCID
0000-0002-0663-099X
Keywords
Telepresence; 360-degree video; Resolution
Subject Categories
Computer Engineering | Computer Sciences | Systems and Communications
Abstract
High-fidelity 360-degree telepresence demands that users both see the whole environment and see it clearly, yet these two goals have proven persistently difficult to achieve together. This dissertation investigates the resolution bottleneck that afflicts immersive telepresence systems across the acquisition, processing, and display pipeline, and proposes a progression of system architectures to address it. The work begins with a structured literature review that maps resolution-related challenges along the full telepresence pipeline and characterizes the practical limitations of current 360-degree capture hardware. Building on this foundation, three system contributions are presented. The first, RA360SR, applies real-time super-resolution to the viewport region of a single omnidirectional stream, exploring the extent to which super-resolution methods alone can address the resolution bottleneck within immersive telepresence. The second introduces a mobile hybrid telepresence framework that fuses a 360-degree panoramic stream with on-demand high-resolution imagery from a co-mounted camera on a Double 3 robot, delivering immersive context alongside selectable focal detail within a CAVE-like display environment. The third targets static scenes with a three-layer architecture that combines an ultra-high-resolution offline background, constructed by compositing PTZ-captured 4K tiles onto an 8K panorama, with real-time foreground matting and live user-directed PTZ streaming, achieving effective panoramic resolutions up to 24K. A user study further demonstrates that this design improves perceived sharpness, fine-detail readability, usability, and presence compared with native 8K video. Collectively, these contributions propose a progression of system architectures that advances from single-stream software enhancement toward hybrid-fidelity multi-source designs, offering a concrete direction for reconciling panoramic immersion with high-clarity detail in 360-degree telepresence.
Completion Date
2026
Semester
Summer
Committee Chair
Dirk Reiners
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)
College
College of Engineering and Computer Science
Department
Department of Computer Science
Format
Document Type
Dissertation
Language
English
Release Date
8-15-2027
STARS Citation
Chi, Jiapeng, "Can't See It Clearly? Hybrid-Fidelity 360-degree Telepresence Beyond the Resolution Bottleneck" (2026). Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026. 249.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/gradstudies_etd_2026/249
Included in
Computer Engineering Commons, Computer Sciences Commons, Systems and Communications Commons
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