Improving Visual Awareness by Real-Time 2D Facial Animation for Ubiquitous Collaboration

Video-based channel that can transmit people's facial expression information is designed to support real-time interaction between collaborators. Yet exchanging facial video in ubiquitous environment is confined by the low bandwidth and limited computational resources on mobile embedded devices. In this paper, we present a novel two dimensional (2D) facial animation communication system which enables the embedded sites to gain awareness of PC users' facial expression via facial animation. The system was examined by experiments and survey. Results show that 2D facial animation provides participants' emotion awareness and is a novel visual communication pattern.

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