Vivid: A Symbiosis between Virtual Reality and Video Conferencing

This paper aims to introduce the concept of using a combination of virtual reality (VR) and video technologies in order to provide a shared environment for video conferencing and to address some important but different problems that have been pinpointed with both types of system. The paper begins by briefly reviewing these two technologies. Following this, a prototype system called Vivid is presented which performs the distribution and texturing of real time video streams onto general objects within a multi-user 3-D graphical virtual world (including onto the faces of user embodiments). The paper then discusses how this system will be extended to support larger numbers of participants through the spatial control of video connectivity and Quality of Service.