cs.HCAug 6, 2026

A Multi-Layer System for Ultra-High-Resolution Static 360-Degree Telepresence

Authors: Jiapeng ChiGerd BruderCarsten NeumannCarolina Cruz-NeiraDirk Reiners

Organizations: VARLab, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA

Abstract

360-degree video telepresence offers strong immersive potential but remains constrained by the limited resolution of current capture and display hardware. Many telepresence installations feature fixed viewpoints and largely static scenes, yet optimization strategies tailored to such setups have received limited attention. We present a multi-layer, ultra-high-resolution system for static 360-degree telepresence that combines an 8K panoramic camera with a rotatable 4K pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera. Our approach builds a three-layer representation: (1) a tile-based ultra-high-resolution panoramic background, generated by offline stitching high-detail 4K PTZ scans onto the base 8K panorama to achieve effective resolution beyond native capture, and represented as a set of spatial tiles; (2) a dynamic update layer that composites foreground motions from the 8K stream via real-time high-resolution background matting; and (3) a region-of-interest 4K layer that streams a real-time PTZ view of the selected region and additionally updates the corresponding background tiles over time. We evaluate the proposed system through comparisons with representative video super-resolution approaches and a user study assessing perceived detail and immersive experience. Our results indicate that tile-based background refinement, together with user-guided updates, provides a practical way to balance panoramic fidelity and interactivity in static 360-degree telepresence.

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