Sigurd Van Broeck

A framework for realistic 3D tele-immersion

Meeting, socializing and conversing online with a group of people using teleconferencing systems is still quite different from the experience of meeting face to face. We are abruptly aware that we are online and that the people we are engaging with are not in close proximity. Analogous to how talking on the telephone does not replicate the experience of talking in person. Several causes for these differences have been identified and we propose inspiring and innovative solutions to these hurdles in attempt to provide a more realistic, believable and engaging online conversational experience. We present the distributed and scalable framework REVERIE that provides a balanced mix of these solutions. Applications build on top of the REVERIE framework will be able to provide interactive, immersive, photo-realistic experiences to a multitude of users that for them will feel much more similar to having face to face meetings than the experience offered by conventional teleconferencing systems.

A Framework for Human-like Behavior in an immersive virtual world

Just as readers feel immersed when the story line adheres to their experiences, users will more easily feel immersed in a virtual environment if the behavior of the characters in that environment adheres to their expectations, based on their lifelong observations in the real world. This paper introduces a framework that allows authors to establish natural, human-like behavior, physical interaction and emotional engagement of characters living in a virtual environment. Represented by realistic virtual characters, this framework allows people to feel immersed in an Internet based virtual world in which they can meet and share experiences in a natural way as they can meet and share experiences in real life. Rather than just being visualized in a 3D space, the virtual characters (autonomous agents as well as avatars representing users) in the immersive environment facilitate social interaction and multi-party collaboration, mixing virtual with real.

PresenceScape: Virtual world mediated rich communication

The shift toward more horizontal and distributed organizations has presented communication challenges for individuals and institutions that are physically separated from one another. Video communication platforms such as Skype, Jabber, and the Cisco video communication system are widely deployed in enterprise environments to enable employee communication over a distance. Those video communication tools that are capable of audio-video exchange and document sharing are sufficient to establish and support communication for formal and scheduled meetings. However research indicates that a good deal of communication and interaction within the enterprise environment is not pre-scheduled. Although not supported by existing video communication tools, this informal communication and interaction plays an essential role in creating and maintaining collaborative relationships. This paper presents an innovative application called PresenceScape, which aims to support informal communication and interaction by leveraging a customized virtual world such as Second Life or OpenSimulator. The system is able to capture real life events, translate them into virtual representation based on user-defined rules, and visually represent those interpreted events in a virtual world. By providing an immersive and interactive common working environment with rich presence and context information, PresenceScape creates a “better than real” office working experience for remote users.

Evaluating PresenceScape: a 3D virtual world application to support social awareness and informal communication in distributed teams

This extended abstract presents a prototype evaluation of an innovative application called PresenceScape. This application is targeting distributed teams of knowledge workers to support social awareness and informal communication by means of a customized 3D virtual world environment. PresenceScape is able to capture real life events, translate and visualize them with user-defined rules into virtual representations. User acceptation and implications for further design of the application are discussed.