A New Dimension for Videoconferencing
by David Pescovitz
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Professor John Canny and graduate student David Nguyen (left) beside their MultiView system. (David Pescovitz photo)
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Three-dimensional videophones are usually lumped into the category of science fiction, technology that's rooted more in The Jetsons than in reality. Not for much longer though. UC Berkeley researchers have developed a system that adds depth to today's teleconferencing software without requiring the user to wear bulky 3-D glasses.
Developed by computer science professor John Canny and PhD student David Nguyen, the InterView system enables participants to view images displayed on a large screen in three dimensions. An animated pendulum appears to swing out from the screen. In another demonstration, multiple viewers can study a collection of computer-generated spheres from various angles. As startling as these naked-eye effects are, they barely hint at what Canny and Nguyen envision for the project.
"Videoconferencing today isn't very good," Nguyen says. "When a 3-D scene is projected as a 2-D image, important non-verbal cues are lost. Our system supports mechanisms like gaze and body language that help you interact with specific people in a room."
InterView is one of the inaugural projects of the new Berkeley Institute of Design (BiD). Affiliated with the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), BiD is a cross-disciplinary research center spanning human-computer interaction, architecture, product design, art practice, education, and engineering. InterView was born from an effort sponsored by the non-profit Corporation Education Network Initiatives in California (CENIC) to develop high-bandwidth applications for the next generation Internet.
Nguyen and Canny view a 3-D image of a swinging pendulum from opposite angles. The image is not clearly visible in this still photo. (David Pescovitz photo)
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"CENIC wanted to identify why people would want gigabit networks in their home," Canny says. "3-D videogames and television seemed to us like plausible killer apps. However, we're starting with videoconferencing because it is a compelling commercial application and at a price point that is close to traditional corporate 2-D videconferencing solutions."
The InterView system consists of a bank of sub-$100 videocameras that capture the remote space. These images are streamed over the Internet and projected onto a custom display fashioned from inexpensive optical materials. The display carefully controls the multiple streams such that a viewer's left and right eyes can receive different images, resulting in the stereoscopic effect. Today, an InterView system might cost $50-$100,000 due to the high cost of the digital projectors involved. If 3-D conferencing takes off though, the researchers expect the hardware prices to drop low enough for their system to become practical for the home market.
"There are cost-effective solutions," Canny says. "For our system, each projector's display power can be much lower. Those kinds of little projectors could conceivably cost less than $100 each. And at least one company is developing products in that space."
For now, the researchers are honing their technology for commercial applications. One of the key problems of 2-D videoconferencing that they hope to solve is the "Mona Lisa Effect," the way that the eyes in Leonardo's painting seem to follow every onlooker all at once. This optical phenomenon makes it extremely difficult for a remote participant to establish eye contact with a single individual when multiple people are present. Similarly, an important mechanism of collaboration, "deixis," is lost in 2-D displays. Deixis refers to the use of gestures or gaze to bring someone's focus to a particular object.
"If I point at something in a remote space, that gesture gets warped by the translation into 2-D," Nguyen says.
InterView preserves gaze and deixis by making the image that any viewer sees dependent on their viewing angle. That way, Canny explains, when a remote participants gestures to something in the room on the other end of the teleconference, there's no question what he's pointing at.
Currently, Canny and Nguyen are modifying Microsoft ConferenceXP, an open research platform of software for collaborative online applications, to support the InterView capabilities. This summer, they plan to conduct a complete two-way 3-D videoconference.
"We've spent many years developing systems like robots and other technologies to make remote presence much more realistic," Canny says. "InterView is the culmination of that work."
InterView Video Conferencing
John Canny's home page
David Nguyen's home page
Berkeley Institute of Design
"A BiD for Better Design" by David Pescovitz (Lab Notes, May/June 2002)
Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS)
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