Simulated Virtual Market Place
By Using voiscape Communication Medium
Yasusi Kanada
Central Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd.
Higashi-Koigakubo 1-280, Kokubunji, Tokyo 185-8601, Japan [email protected]
1 What is voiscape?
•
Voiscape is an auditory-display-based voice communica- tion medium.
・ Users can select and enter an auditory virtual space called a sound room at anytime.
・ Directions and distances in the sound room are expressed by spa- tialized audio (by simulated reflections of the room walls and an HRTF (Head-Related Transfer Function).
・ Users can move freely in the room using a pointing device. (The virtual locations are independent of the real locations.)
•
Multiple conversations and streaming sounds can coexist in a sound room.
・ Two or more users can talk each other; a user can easily see who said what even when two users speak simultaneously.
・ Users can enjoy cocktail-party-like situation; a user can freely choose users to speak and/or sound sources, i.e., music or other streaming sounds.
•
VPII, a voiscape prototype, has been developed.
・ The Room Management Server controls sessions and propagates
virtual presence by using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and SIMPLE (SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions).
・ The Voice Server collects and spatializes the sounds from the users, mixes them for each user, and delivers the mixed sounds.
Conversation
Ad-hoc meeting
Sound room (auditory virtual space)
Voice Server
Spatialization (wall reflection, HRTF, ITD, IID), Mixing
Room Manage- ment Server
Virtual location and conference control (SIP,
SIMPLE, policy-based session control)
IP network
User User
or or
Terminal
RTP
(G.711, upward: 64 kbps, downward: 2x64 kbps) Free
motion
SIP RTP SIP
Hearing-only communication
Cocktail-party- like situation
Streaming sound sources
Concept and system structure of voiscape
2 The user interface: map-based virtual space navigation
•
The user agent (UA) runs on PDAs (Sharp Zauruses) and Microsoft Windows PCs.
•
The UA then displays a map of the sound room, shown on the right.
•
The user can move in the room by using cursor keys or other pointing devices.
3 Virtual Market Demo
•
A virtual market with simulated shops and customers is demonstrated.
・ There are four simulated shops (merchants): a branded shop, an antique shop, a music shop, and an English learning material shop.
・ There are ten simulated customers; five of them are talking with the merchants and other five are talking each other.
・ There are four music sources; one of them (in the music shop) is (simulated) stereo.
•
What you can do here:
・ You can feel the atmosphere of the virtual market; you can hear all the voices at one lo- cation.
・ You can walk close to a shop and hear the conversation and music going there.
・ You can talk each other by using the UAs;
there are three PDA UAs and one Windows UA.
・ You can choose another room: simulated meeting rooms, music rooms, or a speech room.
Left turn ←
↑Proceed
↓Backup
→ Right turn
Key input for motion Sound
room map Local user
(You are here!) Remote users
VPII user interface
Music shop
and a customer (Kenta)
Branded shop
and two customers (Miki and Masako)
Antique shop and
a customer (John)
Stereo speakers
English learning material shop
and a customer (Rie)
Three chatting users
(Masa, Weini, and Jimmy)
Two chatting users
(Ken and Mari)
Speakers for announcements
