Mixed reality participants in smart meeting rooms and smart home enviroments

Human–computer interaction requires modeling of the user. A user profile typically contains preferences, interests, characteristics, and interaction behavior. However, in its multimodal interaction with a smart environment the user displays characteristics that show how the user, not necessarily consciously, verbally and nonverbally provides the smart environment with useful input and feedback. Especially in ambient intelligence environments we encounter situations where the environment supports interaction between the environment, smart objects (e.g., mobile robots, smart furniture) and human participants in the environment. Therefore it is useful for the profile to contain a physical representation of the user obtained by multi-modal capturing techniques. We discuss the modeling and simulation of interacting participants in a virtual meeting room, we discuss how remote meeting participants can take part in meeting activities and they have some observations on translating research results to smart home environments

A mixed reality telepresence system for collaborative space operation

This paper presents a Mixed Reality system that results from the integration of a telepresence system and an application to improve collaborative space exploration. The system combines free viewpoint video with immersive projection technology to support non-verbal communication, including eye gaze, inter-personal distance and facial expression. Importantly, these can be interpreted together as people move around the simulation, maintaining natural social distance. The application is a simulation of Mars, within which the collaborators must come to agreement over, for example, where the Rover should land and go. The first contribution is the creation of a Mixed Reality system supporting contextualization of non-verbal communication. Tw technological contributions are prototyping a technique to subtract a person from a background that may contain physical objects and/or moving images, and a light weight texturing method for multi-view rendering which provides balance in terms of visual and temporal quality. A practical contribution is the demonstration of pragmatic approaches to sharing space between display systems of distinct levels of immersion. A research tool contribution is a system that allows comparison of conventional authored and video based reconstructed avatars, within an environment that encourages exploration and social interaction. Aspects of system quality, including the communication of facial expression and end-to-end latency are reported

Low Cost Video For Distance Education

A distance education system has been designed for Nova Southeastern University (NSU) . The design was based on emerging low cost video technology. The report presented the design and summarizes existing distance education efforts and technologies. The design supported multimedia electronic classrooms, and enabled students to participate in multimedia classes using standard telephone networks. Results were presented in three areas: management, courseware, and, systems. In the area of management, the report recommended that the University separately establish, fund, and staff the distance education project. Supporting rationale was included. In the area of courseware, the importance of quality courseware was highlighted. It was found that the development of distance education courseware was difficult; nevertheless, quality courseware was the key to a successful distance education program. In the area of systems, component level designs were presented for a student system, a university host, and a support system. Networks connecting the systems were addressed. The student system was based on widely available multimedia systems. The host system supported up to sixteen participants in a single class. The support system was designed for the development of courseware and the support of future projects in distance education. The report included supporting Proof of Principle demonstrations. These demonstrations showed that low cost video systems had utility at speeds as low as 7. 2 kbps. They also showed that high quality student images were not crucial to the system. The report included three alternate implementation strategies. The initial capability could be operational in 1997. A multi-session, 2000 user system was projected for early in the next century

Implementation of courseware for Internet delivery

A process centered environment for implementing courseware is presented. The proposed environment addresses some of the constraints in the existing state of the art technology, presently used for distance education. The environment interface is developed using MS FrontPage 98 web development software. The thesis describes the design and implementation of the environment, which is named WVUCT. WVUCT utilizes MS NetMeeting software as a mode for interacting with the students in many different ways. WVUCT uses MS FrontPage 98 for developing a web-based course. The course web once developed using the environment can be published to any httpd server for student\u27s use as well as instructor use. The process model presented specifies the major and minor steps, which can be followed by instructors in preparing effective web-based educational modules. These modules may include lecture notes, assignments and tests. At each step of the process, the environment provides templates and examples on developing the different parts of an educational module using suggested tools and resources. The process model assumes no previous experience on the part of instructors in developing web-based educational modules

Visual Scoping and Personal Space on Shared Tabletop Surfaces

Information is often shared between participants in meetings using a projector or a large display. Shared touch-based tabletop surface is an emerging technology. The shared display may not be able to accommodate all the information that participants want on the display. Moreover, large amounts of displayed information increase the complexity and clutter making it harder for participants to locate specific pieces of information. Key challenges are thus how to eliminate or hide irrelevant information and how participants can add information without distracting the other participants unintentionally. This study reports a novel approach that addresses these challenges by globally hiding information that is not relevant to all participants by introducing a private area on the public display