VIRTUAL PRESENTATION SYSTEM AND METHOD

摘要

A system and method for providing a high-quality complex virtual three-dimensional presentation, for live weather segments of television news, and the like, without the use of expensive hardware setups. A virtual three-dimensional presentation in accordance with the present invention includes three layers, a three-dimensional background layer (12), a two-dimensional video insert layer (14), and a three-dimensional foreground layer (16). The background and foreground may form, for example, a high-quality complex three-dimensional computer-generated scene. The two-dimensional video insert layer may be generated by positioning a presenter (22), or other object, in a chroma-key set (42, 44). A live or recorded two-dimensional video signal and key of the presenter in the chroma-key set is provided by a camera (34) and is composited with playback of the pre-rendered background scene and the pre-rendered foreground scene to form the complete virtual three-dimensional presentation wherein the background layer appears behind the presenter and foreground layer objects appear in front of the presenter.