I’ve started to work on a project called New Terrain of Apparition (NTA) with Luc Courchesne. The goal is to connect several hemispheric projection environments (called Panoscopes), so that users can meet and interact in a networked virtual environment. Several cameras are used to capture each user from various angles, allowing an accurate image to be displayed for each relative viewing angle in the virtual world. This means that even in an immersive 360 degree display, users can look each other in eyes and have a real time video chat. Audio and video transmission is handled by Scenic, and management of the virtual environment is handled by the SPIN Framework.

Below is a video of the first prototype, which will be exhibited as part of CODE Live 1 at the Vancouver Olympics:

The NTA platform for immersive telepresence