Seminar Report

on

TELE - IMMERSION
,
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the award of the degree of

Bachelor of Technology
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Computer Science and Engineering

by

SATHU G. RAJAN

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November 2006

Department of Computer Science and Engineering

Sree Narayana Gurukulam College of Engineering, Kolenchery
Tele - Immersion

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Almighty for His
solemn presence throughout the seminar study .I would also like to express my
special thanks to the Principal Prof. K. Rajendran for providing an opportunity
to undertake this seminar .I am deeply indebted to our seminar coordinator Mr.
Saini Jacob, Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science and
Engineering for providing me with valuable advice and guidance during the
course of the study.

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Faculty of the Department

of Computer Science and Engineering for their constructive support and
cooperation at each and every juncture of the seminar study.

Finally T would like to express my gratitude to Sree Narayana Gurukulam

College of Engineering for providing me with all the required facilities
without which the seminar study would not have been possible.

Dept. of CSE SNGCE. K o l ~ r z I ~ t ~

 TELE-I MMERSION

ABSTRACT

Tele-immersion is a technology to be implemented

together in a simulated environment to interact. Users will feel like they are actually
looking, talking, and meeting with each other face-to-face in the same room. This is
achieved using computers that recognize the presence and movements of individuals and
objects tracking those individuals and images and reconstructing them onto one stereo-
immersive surface. 3D reconstruction for tele-immersion is performed using stereo,
which means two or more cameras take rapid sequential shots of the same object,
continuously performing distance calculations, and projecting them into the computer-
simulated environment, as to replicate real-time movement.
Tele immersion is a technology that will be implemented
with Intemet2lt will enable users in different geographical locations to come together and

1 interact in a simulated holographic environment. Users will feel as if they are actually
looking, talking and meeting with each other face to face in the same place, even though
!they may be miles apart physically. In a tele immersive environment, computers
!1 recognize the presence and movements of individuals as well as physical and virtual
I objects. They can then track these people and non-living objects, and project them in a
realistic way across many geographic locations.
It has varied applications and it will significantly affect the
educational, scientific and medical sectors.
Its main application is in video conferencing and it
takes video conferencing to the next level.
It is a dynamic concept, which will transform the way
human interact with each other and the world in general.

Dept-of CSE SNGCE,Kolenchery

TELE-IMMERSION

CONTENTS
Introduction ....1
The History ....1
What is tele- immersion? ....2
Requirements of Tele immersion ....3
3D environment scanning ....3
Reconstruction in a holographic environment ....6
Projective and display technologies ....7
Tracking technologies ....7
Moving sculptures ....7
Audio technologies ....8
Powerhl networking ....8
Computational needs ....9
Telecubicle ....10
Tele immersion studio ....1 1
Applications ....12

Challenges of Tele-Immersion ....1 5

Solution ....16
About Internet2 ....16
Desktop Supercomputers ....17
Bandwidth issues ....17
Current developments ....18
Conclusion ....20
Future scope ....21
Bibliography ....22

Dcpr.of CSE SKGCE.E;G!~~;:~~,

 INTRODUCTION
I Tele-immersion, a new medium for human interaction
enabled by digital technologies, approximates the illusion that a user is in the same
I
1 physical space as other people, even through the other participants might in fact be
I
.hundreds or thousands of miles away. It combines the display and interaction
~
I

techniques of virtual reality with new vision technologies that transcend the traditional
limitations of a camera. Rather than merely observing people and their immediate
environment from one vantage point, tele- immersion stations convey them as "moving
sculptures,'' without favoring a single point of view. The result is that all the
participants, however distant, can share and explore a life-size space.
I
Beyond improving on videoconferencing, tele-immersion
~ was conceived as an ideal application for driving network-engineering research,
specifically for Tnternet2, the primary research consortium for advanced network
studies in the U.S. If a computer network can support tele-immersion, it can probably
I

~ support any other application. This is because tele-immersion demands as little delay as

' possible from flows of information ( and as little inconsistency in delay ), in addition to
the more common demands for very large and reliable flows.
Tele-immersion car? be of i~nmense use in rnedict~l
industry and it also finds its application in the field of edi~cation

THE HJSTORY
I
It was i11 1965 that, Ivan Sutherland, proposed the concept
of the 'Ultimate Display'. It described a graphics display that would allow the user to
experience a completely computer-rendered environment. 'The term Tele-immersion
\\as first used in October 1996 as the title of a workshop organized by EVL and '
sponsored by Advanced Network & Services, Inc. to bring together researchers in ,
distributed computing, collaboration, VR, and networking. At this workshop. specific
attention was paid to the future needs of applications in the sciences. engineering- and
education. In 1998 Abilene, a backbone research project was launched and no\\ senes
as the base for Internet-2 research. Tele-immersion is the application that \\ill dri\e
forward the research of Internet-2.

Dept.of CSE 1 :--- -

sh(;c~-x._-_
i ,.
-.
 TELE-IMMERSION

WHAT IS TELE- IMMERSION ?

Tele-immersion enables users at geographically distributed

!!

I
sites to collaborate in real time in a shared, simulated, hybrid environment as if they were
in the same physical room.
It is the ultimate synthesis of media technologies:

J 3D environment scanning.
J Projective and display technologies.
Tracking technologies.
J Audio technologies.
J Powerful networking.

The considerable requirements for tele-immersion system,

such as high bandwidth, low latency and low latency variation make it one of the most
challenging net applications. This application is therefore considered to be an ideal driver
for the research agendas of the Internet2 community.
Tele-immersion is that sense of shared presence with
distant individuals and their environments that feels substantially as if they were in one's
own local space. This kind of tele-immersion differs significantly from conventional
video teleconferencing in that the use's view of the remote environment changes
dynamically as he moves his head.

Dept.of CSE 2 SNC;CE.Kolencher>

 TELE-IM MERSION

REQUIREMENTS OF TELE-IMMERSION

Tele-immersion is the ultimate synthesis of media

technologies. It needs the best out of every media technology. The requirements are
given below.
3D ENVIRONMENT SCANNING
For a better exploring of the environment a stereoscopic
view is required. For this, a mechanism for 3D environment scanning method is to be
used. It is by using multiple cameras for producing two separate images for each of
eyes. By using polarized glasses we can separate each of the views and get a 3D view.
The key is that in tele-immersion, each participant must
have a personal view point of remote scenes-in fact, two of them, because each eye
must see from its own perspective to preserve a sense of depth. Furthermore,
participants should be free to move about, so each person's perspective will be in
constant motion. Tele-immersion demands that each scene be sensed in a manner that is
not biased toward any particular viewpoint (a camera, in contrast, is locked into
I portraying a scene from its own position). Each place, and the people and things in it,
I

has to be sensed from all directions at once and conveyed as if it were an animated
three-dimensional sculpture. Each remote site receives information describing the
whole moving sculpture and renders viewpoints as needed locally. The scanning
process has to be accomplished fast enough to take place in real time at most within a
small fraction of a second.
The sculpture representing a person can then be updated
quickly enough to achieve the illusion of continuous motion. This illusion starts to
appear at about 12.5 frames per second (fps) but becomes robust at about 25 fps and
better still at faster rates.
Measuring the moving three-dimensional contours of the
inhabitants of a room and its other contents can be accomplished in a variety of ways.
In 1993, Henry Fuchs of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had proposed
'one method, known as the "sea of cameras" approach, in which the viewpoints of many
cameras are compared. In typical scenes in a human environment, there will tend to be

Dept.of CSE 3 SNGC E.Kolencher!

 TELE-IMMERSION

I visual features, such as a fold in a sweater, that are visible to more than one camera. By
comparing the angle at which these features are seen by different cameras, algorithms
can piece together a three- dimensional model of the scene.
This technique had been explored in non-real-time
'configurations, which later culminated in the "Virtualized Reality "demonstration at
Carnegie Mellon University, reported in 1995. That setup consisted of 51 inward-
looking cameras mounted on a geodesic dome. Because it was not a real - time device,
it could not be used for tele-immersion.
Ruzena Bajcsy, head of GRASP ( General Robotics,
Automation, Sensing and Perception ) Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania,
was intrigued by the idea of real-time seas of cameras. Starting in 1994, small scale
,"puddles" of two or three cameras to gather real-world data for virtual - reality
applications was introduced.
But a sea of cameras in itself isn't complete solution.
Suppose a sea of cameras is looking at a clean white wall. Because there are no surface
futures, the cameras have no information with which to build a sculptural model. A
person can look at a white wall without being confused. Humans don't worry that a
wall might actually be a passage to an infinitely deep white chasm, because we don't
rely on geometric cues alone - we also have a model of a room in our minds that can
I'
rein in errant mental interpretations. Unfortunately, to today's digital cameras, a
person's forehead or T-shirt can present the same challenge as a white wall, and
today's software isn't smart enough to undo the confusion that results.
Researchers at Chapel Hill came with a novel method that
has shown promise for overcoming this obstacle, called " imperceptible structured light
-'or ISL. Conventional light bulbs flicker 50 or 60 times a second, fast enough for the
.flickering to be generally invisible to the human eye. Similarly, ISL appears to the
human eye as a continuous source of white light, like an ordinary light bulb, but in fact
it is filled with quickly changing patterns visible only to specialized, carefully
I
synchronized cameras. These patterns fill in voids such as white wall with imposed
I
features that allow a sea of cameras to complete the measurements. If imperceptible
structured light is not used, then there may be holes in reconstruction data that result
 from occlutions, areas that aren't seen by enough cameras, or areas that don't provide
distinguishing surface features.
To accomplish the simultaneous capture and display an
office of the fbture is envisioned where ceiling lights are controlled cameras and
"smart". projectors that are used to capture dynamic image-based models with
imperceptible structured light techniques, and to display high-resolution images on
designated display surfaces. By doing simultaneously on the designated display
surfaces, one can dynamically adjust or auto calibrate for geometric, intensity, and
1 resolution variations resulting from irregular or changing display surfaces, or
overlapped projector images.
Now the current approach to dynamic image-based
.modeling is to use an optimized structured light scheme that can capture per-pixel depth
and reflectance at interactive rates. The approach to rendering on the designated
(potentially irregular) display surface is to employ a two-pass projective texture scheme
to generate images that when projected onto the surfaces appear correct to a moving
head-tracked observer.
1
1

k1
RECONSTRlJCTION IN A HOLOGRAPHlC EN VIIIONMBNrl'
The process of reconstruction of image occurs in a
/ holographic environment. At the translnitting end. the 3d imagc scanned i s generated
using two techniques. The reconstri~ctionprocess is different fhr shared table and ic3d
I approach.

I
I
Sharer1 Table Approach
Here, the depth of the 3d image is calculated usirig 3d wire
I
ffames. this technique uses various calncra views and con~plexinlage analqsis algorithms
to calci~latcthe depth.
~
1 Assulning that the geonletrical paralnetcrs o f the multi-
I

I
view capture device, the virtual gcene and thc virtual camera are nell fittcd t o each otl~er.
I .
~t is cnsurcd that thc scenc is viewed in thc right pcrspectivc view, m e n wl~ilc.changing
I the viening position.
r Ic3d(incornplete 3d) Approach
I

In this case, a colnmon teuturc surfact: is extracted from the

alailable camera vielvs and thc depth information is codcd in an associated disparit~
nidp. This representation can be encoded into a mpeg-3 vidco ol~jcct. which is then
transmitted.
The decoded disparities are scaled according to the uscr's
3d viewpoint in the virtual scene, and a disparity-contt.olled prqjectiot~is carried out. 'I'l~c
36 perspective of the person changes Lvith the ~novenientof the virtual camera.

In both the approaches, at the receiving end the entirely

composed 3d scene is rendered onto the 2d display of the terminal by using a virtual
a m e r a . the position of the virtual camera coincides with the current position of the
conferee's head. for this purpose the head position is permanently registered by a head
tracker and the virtual camera is moved with the head.
 PROJECTIVE & DISPLAY TECHNOLOGIES
By using tele-immersion a user must feel that he is
immersed in the other person's world. For this, a projected view of the other user's
world is needed. For producing a projected view, big screen is needed. For better
projection, the screen must be c u ~ e and
d special projection cameras are to be used.

TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES
It is great necessity that each of the objects in the
immersive environment be tracked so that we get a real world experience. This is done
by tracking the movement of the user and adjusting the camera accordingly.
Head & Hand tracking
The UNC and Utah sites collaborated on several joint
design-and-manufacture efforts, including the design and rapid production of a head-
tracker component (HiBall) (now used in the experimental UNC wide-area ceiling
.tracker). Precise, unencumbered tracking of a user's head and hands over a room sized
working area has been an elusive goal in modern technology and the weak link in most
virtual reality systems. Currant commercial offerings based on magnetic technologies
perform poorly around such ubiquitous, magnetically noisy computer components as
CRTs, while optical-based products have a very small working volume and illuminated
a
beacon.targets (LEDs). Lack of an effective tracker has crippled a host of augmented
I

reality applications in which the user's views of the local surroundings are augmented
by synthetic data (e.g., location of a tumor in the patient's brain or the removal path of
a part from within a complicated piece of machinery).

MOVING SCULPTURES
It combines the display and interaction techniques of virtual
reality with new vision technologies that transcend the traditional limitations of a
camera. Rather than merely observing people and their immediate environment from
one vantage point, tele-immersion stations convey them as " moving sculptures",
without favoring a single point of view. The result is that all the participants, however
distant,'can share and explore a life size space.

Dept.of CSE 7 SNC;CE.Kolencher!

 AUDIO TECHNOLOGIES
For true immersive effect the audio system has to be
extended to another dimension, i.e., a 3D sound capturing and reproduction method has
to be used. This is necessary to track each sound source's relative position.

POWERFUL NETWORKING
The considerable requirements for tele-immersion system,
such as high bandwidth, low latency and low variation (jitter), make it one of the most
I
challenging net applications.
'I

'
I P Internet 2 -the driving force behind Tele-immersion
It is the next generation internet. Tele-immersion was
I
conceived as ideal application for driving network engineering research. Internet2 is a
consortium consisting of the US government, industries and around 200 universities
: and colleges.
It has high bandwidth and speed. It enables revolutionary
internet applications.
i-. Need for speed:
If a computer network can support tele-immersion, it can
probably support any other application. This is because tele-immersion demands as
little delay as possible from flows of information (and as little inconsistency in delay),
in addition to the more common demands for very large and reliable flows.
-train to Network:
In tele-immersion not only participant's motion but also the
entire surface of each participant had to sent. So it strained a network very strongly.
Our demand for bandwidth varies with the scene and application; a more complex
scene requires more bandwidth.
i Network backbone:
A backbone is a network within a network that lets information
/
t
travel over exceptionally powerful, widely shared connections to go long distances
I
/ more quickly. Each of earlier net played a part in inspiring new applications for the

Dspt-of CSE
TELE-IMMERSION

Internet, such as the World Wide Web. Another backbone research project, called
Abilene, began in 1998, and it was to serve a university consortium called Internet2.
Abilene now reaches more than 170 American research
universities. If the only goal of Internet2 were to offer a high level of bandwidth (that
is, a large number of bits per second), then the mere existence of Abilene and related
resources be sufficient. But Internet2 research targeted additional goals, among them
the development of new protocols for handling applications that demand very high
.bandwidth and very low, controlled latencies (delays imposed by processing signals
and route).

COMPUTATIONAL NEEDS
Beyond the scene-capture system, the principal components
of a tele-immersion setup are the computers, the network services, the display and
interaction devices. Literally dozens of processors are currently needed at each site to
keep up with the demands of tele-immersion. Roughly speaking, a cluster of eight two-
gigahertz Pentium processors with shared memory should be able to process a trio
within a sea of cameras in approximately real time. Such processor clusters should be
available in the later year.
Bandwidth is a crucial concern. Our demand for bandwidth
varies with the scene and application; a more complex scene requires more bandwidth.
We can assume that much of the scene, particularly the background walls and such, is
unchanging and does not need to be resent with each frame.
Conveying a single person at a desk, without the
surrounding room, at a slow frame rate of about two frames per second has proved to
require around 20 megabits per second but with up to 80-megabit-per-second peaks.
With time, however, that number will fall as better compression techniques become
established. Each site must receive the streams from all the others, so in a three-way
conversation the bandwidth requirement must be multiplied accordingly.

Dept.of CSE 9 SN(;CE.Kolenchery

'IELE-IMMERSION

TELE CUBICLE
The tele-cubiclc represents the next gerieration iriimcrsive
interface. It can also be seen as a subset of all possible imrricrsive interfaces. An oftice
appears as one quadrant in a larger shared virtual office space. 'l'he canvases onto which
the imagery can be displayed are a stero-immersive desk surface as \veil as at least two
stereo. Such a system represents the unitication of Virtual Reality and vidcoconfcrencing.
and it provides an opportunity for the full integration of VR into the workflow. Physical
and virti~alenvironments appear united for both input and display. 'l'liis combination, we
bclievc, offers a new paradigm for human communications and collaboration .

2 obliquefmnt stereo _A

Tele cubicle which consists of two w-all surfaces and a desk surfacc wl~icliprqjects 3D
images.
It consists of a stereo irnniersivc desk surface and two
btereo-imrncrsive wall surfaces. These three display surfaces join to form a corner desk
mit. The \.\ialls appear as windows to the otlier users' environment while thc desks join

3cpt.of CSE
together to form a virtual conference tablc in the centre. This will a l l o ~thc realistic
inclusion of tele-immersion into the work environment. as it \vill takc up the usual
amount of desk space.
'Today's tcle-immersion conibincs the superior displa) of
CAVE and ImmersaDesk display systcnis ~ i t hadvaliced ~letuorl<capabilities .The
CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) is a ~nulti-displayvirti~alreality device
comprised of three projection screcn,two "walls" and a *'floor" ~\hicI=iprojects rcal-time
images in response to the user's eye and/or head movements. I'o ensure thc qualit) of the
picture and timeliness of response, the CAVE must be controllcd by a po~zerfi~l
machine.
or supcrcompuier. I n some cases, CAVE proccssing units contain lip to sixteen
processors .CAVE is an example of 3D disply system which i~nplements-''l'elecubicle ".
TELE IMMERSION STIJDIO

It's a room uith all array of vidco cameras to provide

multiple viewpoints and a group of computers to process tlie digitized images. Tlie
people. who appeared as 3-D images. cberc tracked wit11 an array of eight ordinar) video
cameras whilc three other video cameras captured real liglit patterns in room lo calculate
distances. 'This enables tlie proper depth to be recreated on the 3 - D space.

In a remote location, a vicwcr sits In front of a screen.

\\earin:: polarized glasses like those used for 3-T) movics. The screen shows uhat or c ~ h o
's in front of the arra) of video cameras. If the obserker rnovzd his or her head to the

'zfr. he/slie could see the corresponding images rliat \\auld bc seal if she were actually in
:5e rooni u ith the person on tlie screen.

I12~1.~ff
CSE 11 SN(iC't:.Kolenchery
 APPLICATIONS
I) collaborative Engineering Works
Teams of engineers might collaborate at great distances on
computerized designs for new machines that can be tinkered with as through they were
real models on a shared workbench. Archaeologists from around the world might
experience being present during a crucial dig. Rarefied experts in building inspection or
engine repair might be able to visit locations without losing time to air travel.
2) Video Conferencing
Although few would claim that tele-immersion will be
absolutely as good as "being there" in the near term, it might be good enough for
business meetings, professional consultations, training sessions, trade show exhibits
and the like. Business travel might be replaced to a significant degree by tele-
immersion in I0 years. This is not only because tele-immersion will become better and
cheaper but because air travel will face limits to growth because of safety, land use and
environmental concerns.
3) Irnrnersive Electronic Book
Applications of tele-immersion will include immersive
.electronic books that in effect blend a "time machine" with 3D hypermedia, to add an
additional important dimension, that of being able to record experiences in witch a
viewer, immersed in the 3D reconstruction, can literally walk through the scene or
j1/
move backward and forward in time. While there are many potential application areas
'
I

for such novel technologies (e.g., design and virtual prototyping, maintenance and
repair, paleontological and archaeological reconstruction), the focus here will be on a
socially important and technologically challenging driving application, teaching
surgical management of difficult, potentially lethal, injuries.
4) Collaborative mechanical CAD
A group of designers will be able to collaborate from
remote sites in an interactive design process. They will be able to manipulate a virtual
'model starting from the conceptual design, review and discuss the design at each stage,
perform desired evaluation and simulation, and even finish off the cycle with the
production of the concrete part on the milling machines.

Dept-of CSE 13 SN(;GE.Kolenchery

 5) Entertainment
Tele-inimersive holographic environments have a number
of applications. Imagine a video game free of joysticks. in which you become a
participant in the game, fighting rnonsters or scoring touchdowns.

6) Live chat

Instead oftraveling hundreds of miles to visit your relatives

during the holidays, you can simply call thein up and join them in a shared holographic
room.

7) Medicine

Tele immersion can be of immense use to the field of

medicine. The way medicine is taught and practiced has always been very hands-on. It is
impossible to treat a patient over the phone or give i~lstructions for a tilmour to be
removed without physically being there. With the help of tele-immersion. 3D surgical
learning for virtual operations is now in place and, iu the future. the hope is to he able to
carry out real surgery on real patients. A geographically distanced surgeon could be tele-
immersed into an operation theatre to perform an operation. This could potentially be
lifesaving if the patient is in need of' special care (either a technique or a piece of
equipment), which is not available at that particular location.Tele-immersion 'will give
surgeons.the ability to superimpose anato~nicimages right on their patients \while they are
being operated on'.

8) Uses in education
I11 education, tele-immersion can be used to bring together
students at remote sites in a single environment. Kelationships among educational
institutions could improve tremendously in the future with the use of tele-immersion.
Already, the academic world is sharing information on research and development to
I better the end results. Doctors and soldiers could use tele-immersion to train in a
i
simulated environment. This will be a distinct advantage in surgical training. While it
will not replace the hands-on training, this technology will give surgeons a chance to
learn complex situations before they treat their patients. With teleinlmersion in schools.
P

Dept.of CSE 13 SNGCE.Kolencher1

 students could have access to data or control a telescope from a reniote location. or meet
with students from other countries by projecting themsclvcs into a foreign space.
Internet2 will provide access to digital librarics and virtual labs, opening up the lil!es of
communication for students. Tele-immersion will bring to the111places, equipnient and
situations earlier not available, helping tl-iem expcrience what they could have on11
watched. read or heard about earlier.

9) Future office

In years to come, instead of asking for a colleagi~eon the

phone you will find it easier to instruct your computer to find him or her. Once yo11 do
that, you'll probably see a flicker on one ol' your office walls arid lind that your
colleague, who's physically present in another city, is sitting right across you as if' he or
she is right there. The person at the other end will experience the sanlc inimersivc
connection. With tele-immersion bringing t ~ oro more distant people together in a single.
si~nulatcdoffice setting, business travel will become quite redundant.

g Other applications

Building inspectors could tour structures without leaving

their deslts. Automobile desigmers from different continents coi~ldmeet to develop the
next generation of vehicles. In the entertainment industry, ballroo~ndancers could train
together from separate physical spaces. lnstead of cornmutirig to ~ o r kfor a board
meeting, businesspersons could attend it by projecting Lhemselves into the conferelice
room. The list of' applications is large atid varied. and one thing is crystal clear this
technology \will signiiicantly affect the educational, scientific and nledical sectors.
 CHALLENGES OF TELE-IMMERSION

Tele-immersioii has emerged as a high-end driver for tlle Quality of Servicc (QoS),
bandwidth. and reservation efforts envisioned by the NGI and Internet2 leadership.
From a networking perspective, tele-immcrsion is a very challenging technology for
several reasons.
The networks must be in place and tuned to support high-bandwidth
applications.
Low latency, needed for 2-way collaboration, is hard to specify and guarantee
given current middleware.
The speed of light in fiber itself is a limiting factor over transcontinental and
transoceanic distances.
Multicast, unicast, reliable and unreliable data transmissions (called "flows")
need to be provided for and managed by the networks and the operating systems
of supercomputer-class workstations.
. Real-time considerations for video and audio reconstruction ("streaming") are

I
I
s
critical to achieving the feel of telepresence, whether synchronous or recorded
and played back
1 The computers, too, are bandwidth limited with regard to handling very large
1
1; data for collaboration
11
~ Simulation and data mining are open-ended in computational and bandwidth
needs-there will never be quite enough computing and bitslsecond to fully
analyze, and simulate reality for scientific purposes.

In Layman's language the realization of tele-imniersion is impossible today due

to
1. The non-availability of high speed networks
2. The non-availability of supercomputers
3. Large network bandwidth requirement reasons
 SOLUTION
The ilrst two basic problc~ns can be overcome
I
when Internet-2 will come into picture later and third problem can be overcorue by the
fast development of image compression techniques.
I
ABOUT INTERNET3
Internet2 is not a separate physical ne~workand will not replace the current I
Internet. It is not for profit consortium consisting of 200 IJS universities. 1
Industries and is directly under the control of US govt..
Internet2 is for developing and deploying advanced network applica~ionsand
technology, accelerating the creation of tomorroc\rfsInternet.
I
Jnternet2 enables completely new applications such as digital libraries. cirtual
laboratories, distance-independent learning and tele-immersion.
A key goal of this effort is to accelerate the diffusion of advanced Internet
technology, in particular into the commercial sector.

Internet2 is the second generation internet, helps to develop

advanced network applications and technologies for research and higher education, by
recreating the partnerships among academia, industry, and government.

Another backbone research project, called Abilene, begun

in 1998, and it was to serve Internet2. Abilene now reaches more than 170 American
research universities. Internet2 research targeted in the development of new protocols for
handling applications that demand very high bandwidth and very low, controlled
Iatencies (delay is reduced by processing signals along their travel through the network).

We need a po\verful network with high speed and high

bandwidth to transfer the large a~nounts of data that tele-immersion will
psoduce.lnternet2 will replace the current Internet infrastructure. l'his new network will
hale a higher bandwidth and speeds that are 1000 times faster than today's Intenlet. 1his
..
hgh-bandwidth, high-speed provided by Internet2 is sui'licient to transfkr the large
amounts of data that tele-immersion will produce.

I$c;.r.of CSE 16 SNGCE.liolenchery

TELE-IMMERSION

Internet 2 had a peculiar problem : no existing applications

that requires the high levcl of performance provided by internet 2 except teleinimersion

Desktop supercomputers

The Grid will use distributed cotnputiug. There are not

enough supercomputers to deal with the enorlnous amounts of data that n i l l rush through
the Net in the future. As a solution, new networks will connect their PCs so they can
share processing power and hard disk space. 'l'hey nil1 be locked in to a grid-effectively
ci-eatingone supercomputer. About a dozen American universities are doing research 011
various aspects of immersive technologies, including USC, the University of North
Carolina. the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University Mainly two institutions
called PENN and UNC (University of north Carolina) are doing researches in tele
immersion.

Bandwidth issues
Network bandwidth required to make tclc-irnniersio~~
work
is one of the main concerns of this new technology. It is estimated that as much as 1.2
gigabits per second will be needed for future high-quality effects. This is much higher
than the average home connection bandwidth. l'he exact amount of bandwidth needed for
each scene depends on the complexity of the background. With time, the number of
megabits used for transmitting a scene will rcducc as advanced compsession techniques
are established. Initially, bandwidth-intensive applications will have to be limited to the
larger organizations that can afford high c,onnectionspeeds
 'I'ELE-I MMERSlON

CURRENT DEVELOPMENTS

Haptic sensors: Miniaturized forceltorque sensors

There is an increasing need for measuring forces acting

between human hands and the environment. External finger forces are measured by
placing force sensing pads at the fingertips. A wide variety of such pads have been
developed in the past for applications in robotics and medicine, using resistive,
1
I capacitive, piezoelectric, or optical elements to detect force. A critical problem with these
11
I force sensors is that they are often bulky and inevitably deteriorate the human's haptic
sense, since the fingers cannot directly touch the environment surface.
1~
I Recently, much research has focused on rcducing this
problem by inventing thinner and morc tlexiblc force-sensing pads. a new approach to the
detection of finger forces is presented in order to completely climinate any irnpedinient to
the natural haptic sense and hence thc name 'haptic sensors'. (Haptic mcans that '
relating to or based on the sense of touch ' ). An optical sensor mounted on the fingernail
I' detects the force. This allows the human to touch the environment with barc fingers and
I

perform fine, delicate tasks using the full range of haptic sense. Miniaturized optical
components and circuitry allow the sensor to be disguised as a decorative fiiigernail
covering.

.l-laptic sensor is a new type of touch sensor for detecting

contact pressure at human fingertips. Ijence the sensor is rnounted on the fingernail rather
:ban on the fingertip. Specifically, the fingernail is instrumented with miniature light
emitting diodes (LEDs) and photo detectors in order to measure changes in the reflection
intensity whcn the fingertip is pressed against a surface. I'hc changes in intensit), are then
~ s e dto determine changes in the blood volume under the fingernail. a tcchniquc termed
--reflectance photoplethysmography." A ho~nodynalnicmodel is used to investigate the
d~namicsof the blood volume at two locations under the fingernail. A miniaturized
prototype nail sensor is de-signed. built, and tested. 'T'he theoretical analysis is verified
through experiment and simulation.
TELE-IMMERSION

Fig :Implementation of tingernail touch sensors

Figure shows the implementation of fingernail touch sensors. For the prototjrpe s h o ~ n
herc. two photodiode arrays of dimension 4 mm 1 mm are attached end to cnd on the
bottom sidc. Up to 8 of the 32 total photodiodcs can be m~iredup at once, rcsulting in up
to cight sensing locations along the Icn@h of thc fingernail. IJp to three LEDs of
dimension 0.25 mm 0.25 min can be placed i n flexible locations beside the photodiode
arrays.

Haptic sensors would allow people to touch prc),jections as

if they were real. A 3D sensor and supporting software has been developed and patented
that enables the real-time visualization of the haptic sense of pressure. Haptic sensors can
be used in tele immersion systems to sense the pressure and reconstruct the feeling of
touch in combination with other devices

Dept.of CSE 19 SNC;CE.Kolencliery

 CONCLUSION
Tele-immersion is a fast developing technologq and it is
going to benefit the common man once Internet-2 comes into picture. it is of i~nmense
use in thc field of
J Medicine
J It helps in reducing business travel
J Education and numerous other fields
Tele immersion is a dynamic concept, which will
transform the way humans, interact with each other and the world in general.
Tele-lmmersion is a technology that is certainly going to
bring a new revolution in the world and let us all hope that this technolog) reaches the
world in its fill1 flow as quickly as possible.

Dept.of CSE
 FUTURE SCOPE

The tele-immersion system of 20 10 would ideally:

Support one or more flat panels/projectors with ultra-high color resolution (say
5000x5000)
Be stereo capable without special glasses
Have several built-in micro-cameras and microphones
Have tether-less, low-latency, high-accuracy tracking
Network to teraflop computing via multi-gigabit optical switches with low
latency
Have exquisite directional sound capability
Be available in a range of compatible hardware and software configurations
Have gaze-directed or gesture-directed variable resolution and quality of
rendering
Incorporate AI-based predictive models to compensate for latency and anticipate
user transitions
Use a range of sophisticated haptic devices to couple to human movement and
touch
Accommodate disabled and fatigued users in the spirit of the Every Citizen
Interface to the NTlI (National Telc-Immersion Initiative ).

Dept.of CSE 21 SNC;Ck~.I.;olenchcry

TELE-!MM ERSION

Dept.of CSE 22 SNGC E.Kolcr.z:- L-