INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN COMPUTING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY An International online open access peer reviewed journal Research Article ISSN 2277 9140 Virtual conferencing using Artificial Intelligence Neeru Bhardwaj, Komal Chaudhary Department of Computer Science, Bahra University, Waknaghat, INDIA neeru_393@yahoo.com doi:10.6088/ijacit.04.001 Abstract: This paper gives an idea about a communicating technology that can be achieved by intermingling the concept of virtual reality and video conferencing. Video conferencing is a technique that is used by two or more persons for communicating with each other, sitting at faraway places. In video Conferencing people get to communicate both through audio and video. The feature that people are able to see another person is the advantage of video conferencing over simple phone calls or audio conferencing. Video conferencing has a major drawback that there is a lack in eye contact of the communicators. Another disadvantage is that the participants can only get a 2- Dimensional view of the other end, due to which the communication is not proper. Virtual reality is a branch of Artificial Intelligence that is used to create virtual environments for different purposes. Thus using the concept of virtual reality that involves stereoscopic displays for visualization and Cetera algorithms for 3-D sound, the Virtual Conferencing environment can be created. This type of conferencing will overcome the disadvantages of video conferencing and make communication better. INTRODUCTION The term virtual reality is not new. Virtual reality is a computer simulated environment that is capable of simulating places as well as imaginary world. The virtual reality environments primarily focuses on virtual experiences, displayed either on the computer screens or through the stereoscopic displays (that makes special effect), other sensories may also be used, such as speakers and headphones etc. As the term virtual reality indicates, the basic concept involved in virtual reality is fooling the mind. The concept of illusions of depth and the concept of grab and move an object are used. Virtual reality has created its roots in back 1860's when 360 degree art panoramic murals began to appear. "Baldassare Peruzzi", is an example of it. Virtual reality monitoring is a way in which distinction is done between real, virtual and imaginary events or situations according to the memory and how it has been represented in the memory. In order to convince the participants that the experience is a real one, various intrinsic experience and in all the situations where the concept or phenomena of virtual reality are used, the mind/ memory becomes an evaluator, which evaluates the technology and shares the experiences of the virtual reality. In order to characterize the quality of virtual experiences, the degree of sensory realism may be used. By virtue of the advancing technologies and use of various sciences the concept of virtual reality has been intermingled with the field of computer science and this concept has been used in many computer simulated softwares as well as many other environments have also made use of virtual reality concepts in enhancement of the computer technologies. Received on January 2015, Published on August 2015 25
The air force department has been using the concept of virtual reality for training the trainees, how to fly the jets. By using the virtual environment it has been easy and less expensive and has also been a reason for less miss happenings (that would have occurred if the trainees were straight away given the control of an actual jet). Here in this research paper one similar applications has been discussed which can be helpful in the upcoming time (future) for the day to clay communication purpose. As we know that the World Wide Web (www) has shrunken the world to large extent, this shrunken world has been more shrink by some application on the internet which are video calling, offered by some well-known developers, Skype of Microsoft, talk by google, and many more. What if you would be able to touch or feel the person you are talking to on the internet? What if you are in America and a person actually in India joins you through some technology in America there and then. Virtual reality is a technology that can be helpful to achieve this type of communication. THE PROBLEM: As noticed and recorded, the major problem with the video calling or video conferencing includes: Lack of eye contact, and another problem which is faced is that in video conferencing or video calling it is not possible to actually or physically examine things, situations. Thus in order to make things more technologically advanced we need a system where we can actually touch, feel or more change in things which are not near us, or we can say we can alter things which are somewhere in other country. By use of virtual reality technology in collaboration with the internet video calls or 3G calls over the VOIP system we can change the entire communication system. By using the concept of virtual reality during some call, the world can shrink (not physically or geographically and not in a negative manner): in such a way that people sitting in one part of world can perform work at some other part of world. This technological advancement may be helpful in many ways: and may be used by many different skilled persons in a very positive as well as good way. The problem faced by the video conferencing it that: if the video conferencing is being used by a doctor and a patient; the doctor can only listen or see to the patient; he may be able to react some of his reports (but by using the file sharing) but what the video calling lacks in this fast and busy world is that the doctor won t be able to physically examine the patient; and in order to get a proper treatment the patient needs to be physically examined by his doctor. if the video calling is being used for some other process suppose two chefs from different geographical locations are trying to prepare some dish; while one is physically present in the kitchen area while the others one is somewhere else, and is guiding him and helping him but the heat levels: smell the ingredients are some things that can only be felt and cannot be told to anyone verbally. Thus here also the concepts of video calling or video conferencing fails. Another case may be of an mechanical engineer where @ engineers are video conferencing for assembling some curtail parts of a machine although the diagrams can help them locally the thing and explained to each other how and what is to be done. but the things may go complex. Therefore in order to omit such problems, the technology needs to get advanced; and a system is required; where just one click and we can be at another location (not actually or physically just virtual) and perform the task we need to do. Thus there is a need to advance the technology and collaborate it with the virtual world an application of Artificial Intelligence known as the Virtual Reality. HELPFUL FEATURES OF VIRTUAL CONFRENCING 26
As discussed earlier; the limitations that have been encountered in video conferencing or video calling can me overcome by using the concept of virtual environment for video calling and conferencing and this may be helpful in following ways 1. HIGHLY INTERRACTIVE ENVIRONMENT: Whenever we have a video call or video conference the main purpose of both is to achieve a good interactive (or it would be done by just calling). The video was introduced to audio calling just for the sake of improving the interactivity between the parties. Although different conceptions of interactivity already exists in the video calling: but interactive can be better by engagement in the learning. In virtual calling two parties (or even more) can interact with each other and may act as facilitators and provide feedback and guidance during line interaction. The virtual communication and different patterns can be achieved by using the concept of virtual call facilities. 2. EASY TO USE AND USEFUL: The ease of use defines how simple it is to get familiar with the technology and usefulness is the functionality that the technology will be performing. It has been seen that the usefulness and ease of using it has a great impact on the users. If the technology is easy to be used it becomes more popular (for example application like Facebook etc. are more commonly used by the users who do not use internet for other purposes generally). If the system is well designed and highly user friendly; it satisfies the natural curiosities of the new user to explore the system. This feature make the technology useful not only to the ones with a good knowledge of the computer systems or the ones in the field of virtual reality, but the ones who are naïve can also use the system easily. Although the older system (video calling) is also easy to be used, but the usefulness of the system can be bucked up in the new system. 3. IMPROVED COMMUNICATION: One of the major disadvantage face in video conferencing has is that, there are some ways of communicating that do not translate very well over the video for a distant place; such as eye contact. When we sit in some room with others and listen to speech or presentation we are able to make eye contact and they are able to judge the feelings other person has. This is also helpful for the speaker to analyse who is paying attention and this is not achieved through the web camera. Thus the virtual reality can be embedded into such a system that is very much similar to video calling which can referred to as virtual calling. In this the communication can be improved as the effects of embedding the concepts of virtual reality in the video calling would make two callers talk as if they are sitting next to each other s. WHAT VIRTUAL REALITY IS AND HOW IT WORKS: The technology may seem to be very vast and complex but in actual the virtual reality consists only of 3 major steps: Faking the 3D vision Stereoscopic Displays Heat tracking Beginning with the first concept that is faking the 3-D vision: The first question that arises here is why do we have 2 eyes? When we could see equal amount of things through 1 eye. 27
To answer this question, let us consider a diagram shown in figure 1. Whenever we see any object each eye projects the ray of light coming from the object and get the view of the object. To make the thing clearer let us section the diagram into two where we see what individual eye sees. Thus from the figure 2 it is clear that both eyes observe the same object at some different positions (say a difference of very less or µ meters). Figure 2 Now when we have to fake the 3-D vision of any given object we introduce the concept of screens consider 3 screens in a cave like fashion are present around the person who is about to see a virtual object. 28
Figure 3 When the 3 screens are places two different images are placed on the screen, one for both the eye. Diagram 3 shows how a virtual object is made by locating 2 images on the screen. This cave like environment where the screens are placed on three sides of the viewer is also known as stereoscopic display environment. The difficulty that may arise with the stereoscopic displays is that whenever the viewer would have changed the position the virtual image of the object would not be accurate, or would be different from the actual image. Figure 4 Similar would be the case if the viewer comes towards the other side of the display channel. 29
Figure 5 Therefor due to this reason there is a need of head tracking. The head tracking is the concept in which the movement of the viewer is tracked by the computer system and according to the movement of his head the images displayed on the screen are moved (shown in figure 6 and 7). Figure 6 In order to make the system more simple and cost effective we can use the concept of stereoscopic goggles. Where we take two 30
Figure 7 different screens for the different eye and projections, are shown in figure8. Figure 8 The explanation mentioned above is how virtual reality works. In the case of virtual calling we can use the video that is coming from the other end to project the pictures on the stereoscopic displays (whether it be a stereoscopic cave like display or it be stereoscopic goggles). In order to create live virtual reality calling the main work which has to be performed is that the video which is being captured by the web camera of the person involved in video calling has to be mounted on the screens in the similar way as shown in figure 6, 7 and 8. This means that whatever video is being received by the system, the system has to display the video of the image in the video in 2 different places so that the virtual effect or fake 3D vision can be achieved on the viewer. VIRTUAL/3D SOUND Virtualization of sound or audio is another concept that may be used in virtual conferencing. The idea of the virtual sound is as follows: All required for creating 3D effect on sound is to consider the head as a listening point, and around the listening point we need to place high definition microphones. Two microphones are places in order to create the effect. One is placed to the left side of the head and another towards the right side. This setup 31
creates an illusionious situation where the point around which microphones are placed acts like the head of the person and the microphones acts like the ears. After this when the ears hear the sound that is coming through each microphones input, the ability of the brain to distinguish between the distances of points from where the sound is coming acts as the part of the 3D system that creates virtual effect. It is the brain who decides the distance between the points from where the sound is varying. Different algorithms may be used to create such effects. CETERA ALGORITHM The power of the human brain to calculate the tiny distance of e.g. 8cm from one hypothetical microphone to the other and make the person think that someone is near to us while we are listening in a 3D simulated environment. Thus from the above mentioned data we can say that in order to implement a virtual calling environment, two different microphones may be used which need to be high definition for a real good experience, where one microphone will act as one ear and another as another. The 3D sound may also be achieved in 2 different ways By using headphones Or in an environment setup like the one used in cave stereoscopic design. The problem shown in figure 9 can be altered using headphones. In this case whenever the person moves the headphones also move with the head. WHAT VIDEO CALL IS AND HOW IT WORKS? Video calling or conferencing is a way of communicating which enables the people from different geographical locations to connect through video, audio and other technologies of networking. The basic idea of a video is that a computer network works as a central hub where all the parties of the conference connect. The two different networking systems used in the networking during conferencing are: ISDN networks IP networks In video conferencing both the audio-video signals are transmitted over the internet for the communication between people in real-time. COMPONENTS OF VIDEO-CONFRENCING SYSTEM: In video conferencing the main work that is performed is to transmit the real time digital audio and transmission of video using video compression techniques. The compression is performed by a system that is known as codec (coder/decoder). This system codec can be said to be the brain and heart of the video conferencing system. Its work is to get the audio and the video from the microphone and the camera respectively and then compress it before transmitting it over an IP network or ISDN network and on the other end of the system it performs the decompression of the incoming compressed file. The components that are used in video conferencing are as follows: 32
CAMERA MICROPHONES DISPLAYING DEVICES CONNECTING N/W ROOM OR PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT CAMERA: Virtual conferencing using artificial intelligence As video conferencing is a two way system, where both the persons i.e. the caller and receiver have to perform two functions. The caller has to see the receiver and the receiver also has to see the caller. For this the caller must look at the screen and into the camera. As the system is 2D only one camera is placed which is generally placed somewhere on the screen where the caller sees the images that are coming from the receiver and vice versa. MICROPHONES In video conferencing microphones may be placed in two fashions. Either a low definition microphone that has to be placed near the person s mouth. Or a high definition microphone that can be incorporated in a similar manner as the web camera. DISPLAYING DEVICE The video displays such as LCD, LED, and plasma screens are generally used to display the signals or the image that is being received during the video conferencing. Different sized display device may be used for displaying according to the requirement of video conferencing. CONNECTING NETWORK This is the actual path from where the compressed audio and video has to be traveling from the purpose of display in a video conferencing. Most High definition video conferences require a highly symmetric bandwidth. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT OR THE ROOM This is the actual environment where the video conference is being used. It refers to the actual setting of the geographical system i.e the acoustics, lightening arrangements and other setup related to the video conferencing equipment. In a multiuser video conferencing ;( i.e. a system where all participants are at remote locations) a multipoint control unit (MCU) is also required for bridging video conferencing connections. The MCU s end point devices (on the LAN) that allows 3 or more participants to take part in a multipoint video conferencing CONCLUDING THE VIRTUAL CONFRENCING. The main aim of this research paper is to embed all the features mentioned above into a single, reliable and error free system which will make the feel of video calling or video conferencing even better. 33
This new calling facility also can be referred to as virtual calling. For embedding all this into a working system we need to alter or make changes to the already existing system. The purposed system will be designed in such a way that the video calling environment will be totally transformed and the features will be embedded into each other such that everything that is transmitted over the communication network will appear as it s not a video on the screen. For this the stereoscopic display s concept may be used and we will need a device that can channel the image that is being received by the codec in 2 different places which would help in creating 3D illusion of virtualization on the eyes of the person who is viewing the video. This 3D visualization or 3D illusion can be achieved in two different ways: 1. If the virtual calling is involving only one participant who is not actually present, then the idea of using the complete room or hall as the stereoscopic displays can be used. This will use the cave like environment where the walls of the room will be considered as the screens where projection of images is done in such a way that the virtual objects are created when the user see s towards it. 2. Another method can use stereoscopic goggles; the method will only be used in multipoint virtual calling i.e. where every person is at remote positions. 3. After the projection the next step to be achieved is the 3D audio or virtual audio. This is another feature to be achieved and using this the illusion of vision will actually be achieved and this will create a more detailed effect to the virtual vision. To give the 3D audio effect to the purposed system the system will use 2 microphones instead of using one where the audio recorded in the left microphone will be transmitted in such a way that its effect is more on the listeners left ear and vice versa. Various head tracking methods may also be used in case of the virtual calling or virtual conferencing. References 1. An Introduction to Videoconferencing and Distance Learning by Chris McCuller Valdosta State University chris.mcculler@gmail.com 2. Audio Video Conferencing Geoffrey Fox, Gurhan Gunduz and Ahmet Uyar Florida State University 3. Department of Computer Science and CSIT (School of Computational Science and Information Technology) 400 Dirac Science Library Tallahassee Florida 32306-4120 fox@csit.fsu.edu 4. HearMe http://www.hearme.com/ 5. Access Grid http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/fl/accessgrid/default.htm 6. FSU Review of Collaboration Tools http://aspen.csit.fsu.edu/collabtools/collabreviewmay09-01.doc 7. AES Encryption standard http://csrc.nist.gov/encryption/aes/ 34