Adventures in Hologram Space: Exploring the Design Space of Eye-to-eye Volumetric Telepresence

Modern volumetric projection-based telepresence approaches are capable of providing realistic full-size virtual representations of remote people.

holograms-teaser
Volumetric projection-based telepresence in fictional visions of the future do not guarantee eye contact. For instance, the character in (A) is looking down, while the character in (B) is looking forward. Thus, their eye gaze does not match. We present a design space where (C) and (D) can communicate with eye contact.

Abstract

Modern volumetric projection-based telepresence approaches are capable of providing realistic full-size virtual representations of remote people. Interacting with full-size people may not be desirable due to the spatial constraints of the physical environment, application context, or display technology. However, miniaturizing remote people can create eye-gaze matching problems. Eye contact is essential to communication as it allows for people to use natural nonverbal cues and improves the sense of 'being there'. In this paper, we discuss the design space for interacting with volumetric representations of people and present an approach to dynamically manipulate scale, orientation, and position of holograms that guarantees eye contact. Results garnered from a 14 participant test of our augmented reality prototype show improved collaboration and mutual participant awareness.

Publication and authors

VRST 2019 paper "Adventures in Hologram Space: Exploring the Design Space of Eye-to-eye Volumetric Telepresence"
Rafael Kuffner dos Anjos1,2, Maurício Sousa2, Daniel Medeiros1,2, Daniel Mendes2, Mark Billinghurst3, Craig Anslow4, Joaquim Jorge2

1CMIC, Victoria University of Wellington
2INESC-ID / Universidade de Lisboa
3ITMS, University of South Australia
4School of Engineering and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington

Acknowledgments

This project was supported by the Entrepreneurial University Programme funded by TEC, also by FCT through grants IT-MEDEX PTDC/EEISII/6038/2014 and UID/CEC/50021/2019.

The logo of inesc id. - Tecnico logo - Vimmi logo.