Media and Arts Technology Documentaries - User Interaction and Interfaces Queen Mary, University of London

The interactive tea table covered with a map of London maps a recording from a teahouse in each of the thirty-three London boroughs. Teapot marked with an infrared LED allows it to be tracked by a computer vision system. As the teapot is moved around the map, the vision system recognises which borough of London it has been placed on and plays the related teahouse soundscape.

This project aims to simulate the effect of Fishtank virtual reality in a telepresence system by using head-tracking and real-time control of a robotic camera. Despite the use of the term telepresence, the focus is here not on two-way communication between persons in separate spaces, but in creating a strong sense of physical presence by making the observed scene seem to be an extension of the room. The observer can thus interact with a 3D stage as though the screen were a window into the remote space. The research carried out here is unprecedented in that nobody has employed one of the fundamental aspects of the Fishtank concept, namely the alignment of viewer-screen distance to camera-stage distance, in conjunction with a head-coupled camera system.