Out and About — Real World Teleconferencing

Videoconferencing has traditionally been confined to desktop or office environments. However, a large percentage of the workforce is engaged in mobile occupations away from the desktop. In this paper we describe how augmented reality can be used to develop new forms of teleconferencing to support these workers. To provide an example of one approach, we have developed an augmented reality system that allows virtual avatars and live video of remote collaborators to be superimposed over any real location. Viewed in a lightweight headmounted display, the remote collaborators appear as part of the user's real environment. We present results comparing conferencing in this setting with traditional desktop audio and video conferencing.