Dr. Jeremy Cooperstock

McGill University

From Teleoperation to Teleimmersion: Design Challenges for Distributed Interaction

Teleoperation is the control of a machine at a distance, while teleimmersion combines audio and video conferencing with collaborative virtual reality technologies. The goal of the latter is to recreate the dynamics of face-to-face interaction within a computationally enhanced virtual environment. Despite the hype, such systems generally fail to deliver a convincing level of co-presence (the feeling of "being together") between users and come nowhere close to supporting any of the expressive cues and manipulation capabilites we take for granted with objects in the physical world.

Several research efforts have made significant progress in overcoming these shortcomings in isolation, leading to technologies for immersive visualization, high-definition videoconferencing, and two- handed gestural interaction. However, combining these technologies into a unified framework that allows distributed participants to work or play together with the same naturalness as being in the same space seems far in the horizon. We call this ideal a "Shared Reality".

This talk begins with the design of a teleoperation application for an undersea video observatory 100m below sea level in the Saanich Inlet and proceeds to compare its technical and perceptual challenges with those of Shared Reality. Along the way, several videos will be presented, illustrating some of the interesting results we have obtained, in particular for low-latency distributed music.

Biography

Dr. Jeremy Cooperstock (Ph.D., University of Toronto, 1996) is an associate professor in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, a member of the Centre for Intelligent Machines, and a founding member of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology at McGill University. He directs the Shared Reality Lab and leads the technical development of the Ultra-Videoconferencing system, for which he was recognized by an award for Most Innovative Use of New Technology from ACM/IEEE Supercomputing and a Distinction Award from the Audio Engineering Society. Cooperstock's past accomplishments include the Intelligent Classroom, the world's first Internet streaming demonstrations of Dolby Digital 5.1, uncompressed 12-channel 96kHz/24bit, multichannel DSD audio, and three simultaenous streams of uncompressed high-definition video. Cooperstock is a member of the ACM and chairs the AES Technical Committee on Network Audio Systems.

Cooperstock's research interests focus on computer mediation to facilitate high-fidelity human communication and the underlying technologies that support this goal. His Ph.D. thesis investigated the use of computer control over a state of the art videoconference environment, resulting in a reactive room that responds to the activity of users. Following his doctoral studies, Cooperstock spent a year as a visiting researcher at the Sony Computer Science Laboratory in Tokyo, Japan, where he developed a prototype VCR interface that responds to speech and pointing commands, so natural that "even your mother can use it." He has also conducted research with IBM at the Haifa Research Center, Israel, and the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York.