Image-based general-relativistic visualization

Ego-centric, or first-person, visualization is a valuable tool for an introductory course in general relativity as well as for public outreach to provide a deeper understanding of the geometric distortion effects due to curved spacetime. To enhance this process, interactive visualization allows us to scrutinize the effects in more detail, as the student can change the parameters and see how they influence the visual result without delays. The image-based technique, borrowed from special relativity, is restricted to scenes where all objects can be considered to be infinitely far away, such that one has to deal only with panorama images. While the accompanying Java application can be used already in beginning classes to teach general relativity, the underlying technical details are addressed to the more advanced student who is also interested in implementation details.