Communicating eye gaze across a distance without rooting participants to the spot

Wolff, R; Roberts, D; Murgia, A; Murray, N; Rae, J; Steptoe, W; Steed, A; Sharkey, P

Abstract

Eye gaze is an important conversational resource that
until now could only be supported across a distance if people were rooted to the spot. We introduce EyeCVE, the
world’s first tele-presence system that allows people in different physical locations to not only see what each other
are doing but follow each other’s eyes, even when walking
about. Projected into each space are avatar representations
of remote participants, that reproduce not only body, head
and hand movements, but also those of the eyes. Spatial
and temporal alignment of remote spaces allows the focus
of gaze as well as activity and gesture to be used as a resource for non-verbal communication. The temporal challenge met was to reproduce eye movements quick enough
and often enough to interpret their focus during a multiway
interaction, along with communicating other verbal
and non-verbal language. The spatial challenge met was
to maintain communicational eye gaze while allowing free
movement of participants within a virtually shared common
frame of reference. This paper reports on the technical and
especially temporal characteristics of the system.

Citation

Wolff, R., Roberts, D., Murgia, A., Murray, N., Rae, J., Steptoe, W., …Sharkey, P. (2008, October). Communicating eye gaze across a distance without rooting participants to the spot. Presented at 12th 2008 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real-Time Applications, Vancouver, Canada

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 12th 2008 IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real-Time Applications
• Conference Location: Vancouver, Canada
• Start Date: Oct 27, 2008
• End Date: Oct 29, 2008
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
• Deposit Date: Oct 25, 2011
• Additional Information: Event Type : Other