Computer Vision for a 3-D Visualisation and Telepresence Collaborative Working Environment

An integrated media system is a computer-based environment that supports the creation, sharing, distribution and effective communication of multimodal information across the boundaries of space and time. The EU Information Societies Technology (IST) project — VIRTUE (Virtual Team User Environment) is working steadily towards the realisation of most aspects and properties of such a system, with particular emphasis on a three-way semi-immersive telepresence videoconferencing scenario. In contrast with the traditional videoconferencing system that we know now, the outcome of the project is expected to demonstrate distinctive presence features and experience for the conference participants. These include views of full-body-size realistically rendered images, eye-to-eye contact, gaze awareness, normal hand gesturing and direct body language. The purpose of this paper is to describe the current work in its related technical field, and the main objectives and scope of this project. One optional software system framework is outlined, and also illustrated are some component technologies in 3-D computer vision analysis that are being developed. The application of these component technologies, notably the dense-disparity estimation and the novel view synthesis, in 3-D interactive video manipulation and visualisation, are widely expected.