Speaker: Bruce Culbertson
 
Affiliation: HP Labs

Title: Immersive Video Communications at HP Labs

 
Abstract:
Through its Open Innovation program, HP collaborates with talented, creative people beyond HP 
by forming partnerships with universities, national labs, start-up companies, etc.  Our group at 
HP Labs, HP's central research lab, is pleased to have recently launched a partnership with 
UIUC. In this talk, we will present an overview of the work we done at HP Labs over nearly a 
decade in immersive video communications. We began investigating this topic in an effort to 
find a practical application for work we had done in computer vision. Our first project, Coliseum, 
used real-time 3D reconstruction to bring together geographically distributed users into a 
virtual reality experience. One goal of Coliseum, which undoubtedly will continue to guide our 
work well into the future, is to correctly convey gaze and eye contact. Our Multiview project 
attacked the same goal but in a very different way.  Several years ago, HP launched an 
immersive communication product called Halo. At HP Labs, we have developed a number of 
novel technologies to extend Halo's capabilities. These include unusual cameras, displays, and 
multimedia processing to tie them together. Our group has been expanding in number and 
expertise, now including specialists in audio, multimedia streaming, video coding, and 
networking, giving us the opportunity to address the challenges of immersive 
communications more comprehensively in the future.
 
Bio:
Bruce Culbertson has worked at Hewlett-Packard Labs in Palo Alto since 1984.  Currently, he 
manages a handful of researchers with interests in computer vision and graphics who primarily 
apply their skills toward improving the state of the art in immersive, natural communications. 
Over the years, his research interests have included computer vision, defect tolerant computer 
design, reconfigurable computers, logic synthesis, computer architecture and low latency 
networks.
 
 
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