Highly Realistic 3D Presentation Agents with Visual Attention Capability

This research proposes 3D graphical agents in the role of virtual presenters with a new type of functionality – the capability to process and respond to visual attention of users communicated by their eye movements. Eye gaze is an excellent clue to users’ attention, visual interest, and visual preference. Using state-of-the-art non-contact eye tracking technology, eye movements can be assessed in a unobtrusive way. By analyzing and interpreting eye behavior in real-time, our proposed system can adapt to the current (visual) interest state of the user, and thus provide a more personalized, context-aware, and ‘attentive’ experience of the presentation. The system implements a virtual presentation room, where research content of our institute is presented by a team of two highly realistic 3D agents in a dynamic and interactive way. A small preliminary study was conducted to investigate users’ gaze behavior with a non-interactive version of the system. A demo video based on our system was awarded as the best application of life-like agents at the GALA event in 2006.