FocalSpace: multimodal activity tracking, synthetic blur and adaptive presentation for video conferencing

Authors:
Lining Yao;Anthony DeVincenzi;Anna Pereira;Hiroshi Ishii
Affiliations:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA;Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA;Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA;Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA
Venue:
Proceedings of the 1st symposium on Spatial user interaction
Year:
2013

Citing 12
Cited 0

Multiparty videoconferencing at virtual social distance: MAJIC design

CSCW '94 Proceedings of the 1994 ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work
GAZE-2: an attentive video conferencing system

CHI '02 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Semantic Depth of Field

INFOVIS '01 Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization 2001 (INFOVIS'01)
eyeView: focus+context views for large group video conferences

CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Bilayer Segmentation of Live Video

CVPR '06 Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition - Volume 1
Presence and portrayal: video for casual home dialogues

MULTIMEDIA '06 Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM international conference on Multimedia
Beyond "beyond being there": towards multiscale communication systems

Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Multimedia
BiDi screen: a thin, depth-sensing LCD for 3D interaction using light fields

ACM SIGGRAPH Asia 2009 papers
Video play: playful interactions in video conferencing for long-distance families with young children

Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children
Kinected conference: augmenting video imaging with calibrated depth and audio

Proceedings of the ACM 2011 conference on Computer supported cooperative work
OmniTouch: wearable multitouch interaction everywhere

Proceedings of the 24th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
On saliency, affect and focused attention

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Quantified Score

Hi-index	0.00

Visualization

Abstract

We introduce FocalSpace, a video conferencing system that dynamically recognizes relevant activities and objects through depth sensing and hybrid tracking of multimodal cues, such as voice, gesture, and proximity to surfaces. FocalSpace uses this information to enhance users' focus by diminishing the background through synthetic blur effects. We present scenarios that support the suppression of visual distraction, provide contextual augmentation, and enable privacy in dynamic mobile environments. Our user evaluation indicates increased memory accuracy and user preference for FocalSpace techniques compared to traditional video conferencing.