Talk Tuesday: Immersive Video Communications at HP Labs

[bill]

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science Colloquium
and the CompCore BrownBag SeminarSeries
Tuesday June 2, 2009
at Noon in VBT 217



Immersive Video Communications at HP Labs
Bruce Culbertson
HP Labs



ABSTRACT


I will describe nearly a decade of work we have done at HP Labs in
immersive video communications. We began investigating this topic in
an effort to find a practical application for work we had done in
computer vision. Our first project, Coliseum, used real-time 3D
reconstruction to bring together geographically distributed users into
a virtual reality experience. One goal of Coliseum, which undoubtedly
will continue to guide our work well into the future, is to correctly
convey gaze and eye contact. Our Multiview project attacked the same
goal but in a very different way. Several years ago, HP launched an
immersive communication product called Halo. At HP Labs, we have
developed a number of novel technologies to extend Halo’s
capabilities. These include unusual cameras, displays, and multimedia
processing to tie them together. Our group has been expanding in
number and expertise, now including specialists in audio, multimedia
streaming, video coding, and networking, giving us the opportunity to
address the challenges of immersive communications more
comprehensively in the future.

Bruce Culbertson has worked at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto since
1984. Currently, he manages a handful of researchers with interests
in computer vision and graphics who primarily apply their skills
toward improving the state of the art in immersive, natural
communications. Over the years, his research interests have included
computer vision, defect tolerant computer design, reconfigurable
computers, logic synthesis, computer architecture and low latency
networks.