Google has revealed details about their new real-time bi-directional communication system that lets two people, separated by distance, experience a face-to-face conversation as if they were actually present in front of each other in the same room.
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"We carefully design and engineer the physical layout, lighting, 3D capture, compression, rendering, display, and audio subsystems to eliminate as many hints as possible that the remote participant is not in the same room as the user," Google said in its research paper titled 'Project Starline: A high-fidelity telepresence system'.
The new system enables the full range of communication cues including eye contact, hand gestures, and body language, yet does not require special glasses or body-worn microphones or headphones, Google said.
It consists of a head-tracked auto-stereoscopic display, high-resolution 3D capture and rendering subsystems, and network transmission system.
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To measure the system’s effectiveness, Google had let 117 people use it for their existing remote work meetings. Some of them separated by more than 1,000 kms. According to the company’s own survey, more than 87% were in favour of the new system over traditional video conferencing services.
