Tangible video communication over the Internet

Abstract

Video-conferencing and video phone calls are common nowadays. However more immersion can be achieved if we not only see and hear but also physically feel each other. In contrast to previous attempts which were mostly setting up integral video-haptic communication systems, we propose a different way where we use any existing video communication tools while asynchronously exchanging over the Internet cloud server very little data packets containing only haptic interaction data. In case of desktop haptic devices, we only exchange between the participating computers haptic interface point coordinates, orientation angles of the device handles and computed force vectors. More options for haptic communication appear when we replace common video cameras with depth-sensing cameras and hand-tracking devices. Then, motion of the hand, arm or even the whole body of one party can be both seen and physically felt by the other party participating in such Internet tangible video communication. We validated the proposed way of communication by technical measurements of the transmission times over the LAN and Amazon Cloud server, as well as by conducting a successful user study.