Rich, Immersive AR/VR Communication

Face-to-face communication provides substantial benefits over traditional remote communication via video and voice: the expressivity of body language, spatial grounding in a common physical space, access to physical tools and objects, and much more. For many collaborative tasks, face-to-face communication is considered indispensable, yet meeting in person can be rendered infeasible by any number of factors, such as cost, time, urgency, or pandemics.
Simultaneously, the recent pandemic has forced people to explore new ways to enjoy shared experiences such as concerts and sporting events. However, video conferencing tools used for this purpose lack the interactivity and social aspects which make such experiences immersive.
The broad goal of this research is to investigate ways to bring some of the strong benefits of face-to-face communication into remote communication, via the use of augmented and virtual reality technology. AR/VR technologies have the potential to unlock far richer and more immersive communication compared with traditional video or voice calls, yet that potential has not been fully realized in today’s systems.
We propose researching novel communication technologies built atop AR/VR platforms across two streams: bridging the physical and virtual environments in mixed-reality calls, and building mixed-reality crowd experiences based on scalable immersive video delivery.

Faculty Supervisor:

Robert Xiao

Student:

Partner:

Rogers Communications Inc.

Discipline:

Computer science

Sector:

Information and Communications Technology; Entertainment and Media; New and Digital Media

University:

The University of British Columbia

Program: