Objective
The most visible deliverable will be the AvatarBooth which will be used to automatically build Avatars for large numbers of people. The booth will be networked to i3-NET and Avatar datasets sent to the i3-NET server. AvatarBooth users can then download their Avatars from i3-NET at home.
POPULATE is a horizontal proposal within the IIS schema. Collaboration with other IIS consortia and the development of shared vision(s) of population of IISs will be an important first step. 3D Scanners will then lead the AvatarBooth research. REM-Infografica will research into automatically generating the humanoid Avatar models from the captured data in the various formats required by IISs. Both companies will evaluate aspects of the population of IISs by conducting user trials. If the research is successful, two European companies will be poised to dominate a very large market for AvatarBooths in the next century.
Most people in Europe will eventually have access to Inhabited Information Spaces (IIS). This proposal addresses the research question of how IISs will be populated with representations of real people. Our thesis is that it is fundamental that people have a representation in an IIS (an Avatar); that a standard Avatar will evolve; that the standard Avatar will be humanoid and that a person's Avatar will be very similar to the actual person.
Passport photos have been a requirement for over 80 years in Europe. We believe that a person's identity in an IIS will be his humanoid Avatar. The premise for POPULATE is that a step is required in which the reality of a person is captured to form that Avatar. In other words an Avatar booth will be required that is similar to a passport photo booth. It is our belief that the specialised equipment of an AvatarBooth is required to capture the reality of a person - a reality that will add an enhanced dimension to an IIS - a reality that cannot be captured in the home.
The POPULATE research will address the questions:
- how should the reality of a person be captured?
- how can the captured data be converted into humanoid Avatars?
- what is the level of quality required from the reality capture process?
- what are the economic, experiential and social needs models for capturing humanoid Avatars of hundreds of millions of people in the world?
Topic(s)
Call for proposal
Data not availableFunding Scheme
ACM - Preparatory, accompanying and support measuresCoordinator
CV1 2TT COVENTRY
United Kingdom