Next Generation Telepresence Systems

Nicola Ranieri, Claudia Kuster, Tiberiu Popa, Jean-Charles Bazin, Markus Gross

Copyright Markus Gross, ETHZ, 2009

Advanced communication and remote collaboration are key requirements of our modern society. Yet, the notion of presence over large distances is relatively little understood from a scientific point of view, and there is a variety of perceptual and technical research challenges that need to be addressed to design truly convincing telepresence systems.

Existing practical solutions to remote communication and telecollaboration focus on video conferencing, but are significantly limited. Standard commercial video conferencing systems rely on 2D displays and single video cameras to acquire video streams of the collaborators. These systems do not have the abilities to capture and render all the details required for a seamless immersive experience.

To enrich the expressiveness of human communication, we envision solutions that would let us perceive our remote collaborators seamlessly embedded into our own working environment including autostereoscopic 3D display devices and acquisition systems that can capture not only video streams, but also other types of information such as 3D geometry, motion capture data etc. The ideal system is a sensory-rich environment that provides a highly compelling experience that is the epitome of presence including perceptually crucial cues such as eye contact, mimicry and gestures. Given the recent progress in graphics, vision, and robotics as well as novel sensor, capture and display technology, we believe that it is now time for another pioneering and radically new approach.

Mobile Telepresence Platform
Copyright Markus Gross, ETHZ, 2009

The central enabling technology for mobile telepresence applications and telecollaboration will be a mobile and adaptive autostereoscopic 3D display platform, which can display collaborators at remote locations.

• C. Kuster, T. Popa, C. Zach, C. Gotsman, M. Gross, FreeCam: A Hybrid Camera System for Interactive Free-Viewpoint Video, Proceedings of Vision, Modeling, and Visualization (VMV) (Berlin, Germany, October 4-6, 2011), pp. 17-24
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