Immersive Telepresence: Transcending Space and Time

With increasing economic globalization and workforcemobilization, there is a strong need for research anddevelopment of advanced infrastructures and tools to bringimmersive experience into telecommunication so people acrossgeographically distributed sites can interact collaboratively ina natural way. This requires deep understanding of multipledisciplines. In particular, computer vision, graphics and acousticsare indispensable in order to capture and render 3D environmentsthat create the illusion that the remote participantsare in the same room. The existing videoconferencing systems,whether they are available on desktop and mobile devices orin dedicated conference rooms with built-in furniture and lifesizedhigh-definition video, leave a great deal to be desired:mutual gaze, 3D, motion parallax, spatial audio, to name afew. For the first time, the necessary immersive technologiesare emerging and coming together to enable real-time capture,transport, and rendering of 3D "hologram", and we are muchcloser to realize man\´s dream reflected in Hollywood moviesfrom Star Trek and Star Wars to The Matrix and Avatar. Inthis paper, I will take you on a tour of various componenttechnologies as well as experiences that are being developed atMicrosoft Research for immersive Telepresence.