Antonella Frisiello

Network support for social 3-D immersive tele-presence with highly realistic natural and synthetic avatar users

The next generation in 3D tele-presence is based on modular systems that combine live captured object based 3D video and synthetically authored 3D graphics content. This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a network solution for multi-party real-time communication of these types of content. This prototype includes a UDP/TCP multi-streaming kernel that includes media synchronization support, packet scheduling, loss resilient real-time transmission and an easy to use blocking and non-blocking API. To compress the live reconstructed 3D data streams that represent the natural user, two categories of 3D mesh codecs were integrated: a highly adaptive real-time geometry driven mesh codec and a fast single rate codec that provides better performance at high resolutions. Subjective tests with 16 subjects indicate that only modest perceptual degradation of the highly realistic 3D natural user is introduced, especially when the users in the virtual world are at a distance. We developed a session management protocol for setting up streams based on the specific 3DTI capabilities allowing device scalability from light (render only) to heavy clients (rendering and 3D Capturing). Additionally, a distributed messaging system via web-sockets and cloud infrastructures based on publish and subscribe was integrated for real-time delivery of avatar and other AI data.

A new urban technoscape component: the smart 2 poster

This paper presents the Smart2Poster concept, based on a traditional visual communication tool enhanced by the integration of a proximity technology such as the Near Field Communication (NFC). The concept has been designed and prototyped to study a situated interaction modality, bridging digital information and the surrounding physical world, by means of familiar objects (a poster, a smartphone and/or a TV screen). Two different usage scenarios have driven the design and the implementation of one prototype born to enable offline mediated interactions among public administrations and citizens.

Smart2poster. bridging information and locality

This paper presents the Smart2Poster concept, a solution proposing an interaction modality aimed at bridging the information and the surrounding physical world, by means of familiar objects (a poster, a smartphone and/or a TV screen) and based on the Near Field Communication technology (NFC) that enables a local Peer-to-Peer communication without requiring further connectivity. Moreover, the paper describes the usage scenarios that driven the design and the implementation of the first prototype.

Co-design of a crowdsourcing solution for disaster risk reduction

Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) is a complex field in which a huge amount of data is used to plan preventive measures, get prepared to natural disasters, and effectively respond when they strike. This work focuses on the definition of a co-design methodology to integrate a crowdsourcing solution in the DRR processes. We define the proposed methodology, and implement it involving operators and experts in the DRR domain (crisis managers, technical services, first responders). We show how a participatory design approach helps in the design of a crowdsourcing solution that experts are willing to integrate into their DRR procedures.

Objective and subjective quality assessment of geometry compression of reconstructed 3D humans in a 3D virtual room

Compression of 3D object based video is relevant for 3D Immersive applications. Nevertheless, the perceptual aspects of the degradation introduced by codecs for meshes and point clouds are not well understood. In this paper we evaluate the subjective and objective degradations introduced by such codecs in a state of art 3D immersive virtual room. In the 3D immersive virtual room, users are captured with multiple cameras, and their surfaces are reconstructed as photorealistic colored/textured 3D meshes or point clouds. To test the perceptual effect of compression and transmission, we render degraded versions with different frame rates in different contexts (near/far) in the scene. A quantitative subjective study with 16 users shows that negligible distortion of decoded surfaces compared to the original reconstructions can be achieved in the 3D virtual room. In addition, a qualitative task based analysis in a full prototype field trial shows increased presence, emotion, user and state recognition of the reconstructed 3D Human representation compared to animated computer avatars.

Mobile electronic memos

This paper explores a novel concept called Mobile Electronic Memo whose purpose is to overcome the limitations in terms of interoperability and accessibility imposed by the current technology. To achieve this goal, Mobile Electronic Memos decouple the semantics of the information from the physical and pragmatic constraints of the medium that transports it. We examine related works and standards that could be good candidates for implementing MEMs and describe a prototype implementation that has been realized as a proof of concept.