SINGAPORE: Imagine sending your 3D avatar to meetings or classroom lessons. This could be a reality in a not-too-distant future, thanks to a new S$23 million research facility called the BeingThere Centre.
The centre, located at Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) Institute for Media Innovation, is a joint collaboration between NTU, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).
The facility will develop technology called BeingThere. This technology gives the illusion that people from afar are in the same common space and creates a feeling of "natural interaction" and being there.
Thirty-two scientists from the three universities will work together at the BeingThere Centre to change the way people communicate - using interactive real-time 3D communication known as telepresence and telecollaboration - the same way change came with the telephone or email.
There will be four prototypes of telepresence systems.
For instance, if you are too busy to attend a meeting you could send an "autonomous Avatar". "This virtual human will be able to recognise the real participants in the meeting, register what is being said and report to the absentee after the meeting," said NTU's Institute for Media Innovation director Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann.
Besides the "autonomous Avatar" and room-based telepresence systems, the scientists will be working on a roving display that brings a 3D representation of a person in a distant location to a place that can be controlled by both users.
In other words, like a hologram in a glass panel. The display is semi-transparent and will give the illusion of the other person being present in a room, laboratory or hospital.
The fourth project will, literally, make the film Avatar a reality by seeking to create a mobile robotic mannequin that acts as a remotely located "avatar", which can freely navigate a distant environment and takes on the appearance and gestures of its far-away human host.
This technology could improve communication, reduce the carbon footprint, circumvent travel delays such as extreme weather conditions that ground aeroplanes and speed up decision-making, said NTU provost Bertil Andersson.
He added that telepresence has "immense potential" for the healthcare sector - for doctors and professionals to respond faster and treat patients accurately from a distance.
Of the four prototypes, roving hologram displays are "closest" to being commercialised, said UNC-Chapel Hill's Professor Henry Fuchs.
All this may sound like something from a science fiction movie, but a lot of the technology is already being used in everyday applications.
The artificial intelligence of avatars, for instance, is based on data-crunching, which is very much like what Google does.
Type in some keywords, and Google can infer from past searches to present possible answers.
The possibilities could be endless.
And they could be affordable too.
Prof Fuchs said: "What it takes are these little tiny projectors, which are a few hundred dollars now and (whose prices) are rapidly going down....(and) cameras, which are in every other pocket phone that has a camera. So there's no part of the technology that's really expensive."
Scientists hope to take these ideas to the market in a few years.
Professor Markus Gross from ETH Zurich expects that in five years, the team at BeingThere will be able to create 3D avatars that are of high visual quality and believability and that can be seen without the use of 3D glasses.
Prof Gross said these can be integrated into real-world environments.
"Further down the road, the goal would be to be fully holographic, such that you can create the avatar at any time, at any place - like the Princess Leia Star Wars communicator!" he said.
In the next 10 years, telepresence is expected to become a multi-billion dollar market as broadband Internet networks and superfast computer chips are developed to transmit and process increasingly intensive streams of digital information.
The BeingThere Centre will see S$23 million pumped in over four years. Of this, S$10 million will be contributed by the Media Development Authority through the National Research Foundation, as part of moves to boost Singapore's interactive digital media sector.
The facility will develop technology called BeingThere. This technology gives the illusion that people from afar are in the same common space and creates a feeling of "natural interaction" and being there.
Thirty-two scientists from the three universities will work together at the BeingThere Centre to change the way people communicate - using interactive real-time 3D communication known as telepresence and telecollaboration - the same way change came with the telephone or email.
There will be four prototypes of telepresence systems.
For instance, if you are too busy to attend a meeting you could send an "autonomous Avatar". "This virtual human will be able to recognise the real participants in the meeting, register what is being said and report to the absentee after the meeting," said NTU's Institute for Media Innovation director Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann.
Besides the "autonomous Avatar" and room-based telepresence systems, the scientists will be working on a roving display that brings a 3D representation of a person in a distant location to a place that can be controlled by both users.
In other words, like a hologram in a glass panel. The display is semi-transparent and will give the illusion of the other person being present in a room, laboratory or hospital.
The fourth project will, literally, make the film Avatar a reality by seeking to create a mobile robotic mannequin that acts as a remotely located "avatar", which can freely navigate a distant environment and takes on the appearance and gestures of its far-away human host.
This technology could improve communication, reduce the carbon footprint, circumvent travel delays such as extreme weather conditions that ground aeroplanes and speed up decision-making, said NTU provost Bertil Andersson.
He added that telepresence has "immense potential" for the healthcare sector - for doctors and professionals to respond faster and treat patients accurately from a distance.
Of the four prototypes, roving hologram displays are "closest" to being commercialised, said UNC-Chapel Hill's Professor Henry Fuchs.
All this may sound like something from a science fiction movie, but a lot of the technology is already being used in everyday applications.
The artificial intelligence of avatars, for instance, is based on data-crunching, which is very much like what Google does.
Type in some keywords, and Google can infer from past searches to present possible answers.
The possibilities could be endless.
And they could be affordable too.
Prof Fuchs said: "What it takes are these little tiny projectors, which are a few hundred dollars now and (whose prices) are rapidly going down....(and) cameras, which are in every other pocket phone that has a camera. So there's no part of the technology that's really expensive."
Scientists hope to take these ideas to the market in a few years.
Professor Markus Gross from ETH Zurich expects that in five years, the team at BeingThere will be able to create 3D avatars that are of high visual quality and believability and that can be seen without the use of 3D glasses.
Prof Gross said these can be integrated into real-world environments.
"Further down the road, the goal would be to be fully holographic, such that you can create the avatar at any time, at any place - like the Princess Leia Star Wars communicator!" he said.
In the next 10 years, telepresence is expected to become a multi-billion dollar market as broadband Internet networks and superfast computer chips are developed to transmit and process increasingly intensive streams of digital information.
The BeingThere Centre will see S$23 million pumped in over four years. Of this, S$10 million will be contributed by the Media Development Authority through the National Research Foundation, as part of moves to boost Singapore's interactive digital media sector.
