Designing immersive environments for extreme environments

Immersive media provide the opportunity for anyone to immerse themselves into an environment which may be entirely virtual or a representation of real-world environments. The simulation of an underwater environment enjoys special attention in the research world, with applications for tourism sectors, archaeological training and for orientation and navigation purposes in actual diving scenarios. Underwater the human senses are distorted due to changes in the prevailing physical quantities in water. The greater density of the medium water, when compared with the atmosphere, has negative consequences on the tactile, visual and auditory perception of humans. For a realistic representation of an underwater world virtually or the use of augmentation during submersion, a deep understanding of these physical conditions and their subsequent effects on the human sensory systems is required. This work identifies the predominant underwater physical quantities, determines the distortion effects on the human body and highlights technical solutions for image processing in augmented and virtual realities to accurately adopt the underwater world for immersive media.