SAVI: an actively controlled teleconferencing system

A Stereo Active Vision Interface (SAVI) is introduced which detects frontal faces in real world environments and performs particular active control tasks dependent on hand gestures given by the person the system attends to. The SAVI system is thought of as a smart user interface for teleconferencing, telemedicine, and distance learning applications. To reduce the search space in the visual scene the processing is started with the detection of connected skin colour regions applying a new radial scanline algorithm. Subsequently, in the most salient skin colour region facial features are searched for while the skin colour blob is actively kept in the centre of the visual ®eld of the camera system. After a successful evaluation of the facial features the associated person is able to give control commands to the system. For this contribution only visual control commands are investigated but there is no limitation for voice or any other commands. These control commands can either effect the observing system itself or any other active or robotic system wired to the principle observing system via TCP/IP sockets. The system is designed as a perception-action-cycle (PAC), processing sensory data of different kinds and qualities. Both the vision module and the head motion control module work at frame rate on a PC platform. Hence, the system is able to react instantaneously to changing conditions in the visual scene. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.