Towards Immersive Telepresence SCHLOSSTAG’97

Abstract

Today’s technology and advances in networking and multimedia systems stimulate a change in the way business is carried out, making it a globally distributed process, in which communication and collaboration of geographically dispersed group is of vital importance. Teleconferencing and collaborative telepresence systems that provide high-degree of copresence give enough evidences that projective VR systems when combined with multimedia facilities, such as real-time video and audio, can greatly facilitate the communication and collaboration over distance in a variety of application areas. The approach presented in this paper, creates an environment where remote participants not only meet as if face to face, but also share the same virtual space and perform common tasks. Multimedia datastreams, such as live stereo-video and audio, from a projective VR system are transmitted and integrated into the virtual space of another participant at a distant VR system, allowing geographically separated groups to meet in a common virtual space, while maintaining eyecontact, gaze awareness and body language