Actual-Time Whiteboard Capture and Processing using a Video Digital Camera For Teleconferencing

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IEEE Internatonal Convention on Acoustcs, Artifical Intelligence Speech, and Sgnal Processng (ICASSP 2005), Vol.2, pp , March 18-23, 2005, Phladelpha. Full verson to look n IEEE Transactons on Multmeda wth slghtly modfed ttle Real-Tme Whteboard Capture and Processng Usng a Vdeo Digicam for Distant Collaboraton Abstract Ths paper descrbes our just lately developed system whch captures pen strokes on whteboards n real tme usng an off-the-shelf vdeo digicam. Unlke many exstng tools, our system doesn't nstrument the pens or the whteboard. It analyzes the sequence of captured vdeo mages n real tme, classfes the pxels nto whteboard background, pen strokes and foreground obects (e.g., individuals n entrance of the whteboard), and extracts newly wrtten pen strokes. Ths allows us to transmt whteboard contents usng very low bandwdth to remote meetng partcpants. Combned wth different teleconferencng tools comparable to voce convention and applcaton sharng, our system turns into a powerful device to share deas durng onlne meetngs. Keywords: Whteboard seize, annotaton, meetng archvng, vdeo analyss, audo/vdeo ndexng, mage classfcaton, corporate data base, dgtal lbrary.

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson >News Articles" src="https://media.defense.gov/2008/Apr/25/2000628612/825/780/0/080418-F-0187C-007.JPG" style="clear:both; float:left; padding:10px 10px 10px 0px;border:0px; max-width: 365px;">1 INTRODUCTION The true-Tme Whteboard Seize System (RTWCS) s part of our Dstrbuted Meetngs proect, whch ams at dramatcally mprovng information employees meetng experence usng ubqutous computng technologes. The work offered n ths paper focuses on the partcular meetng scenaros that use whteboard heavly comparable to branstormng sessons, lectures, proect plannng meetngs, and patent dsclosures. In these sessons, a whteboard s ndspensable. It provdes a big shared space for the partcpants to focus ther attenton and categorical ther deas spontaneously. It s not solely effectve but in addition economcal and straightforward to make use of -- all you need s a flat board and several dry-nk pens. Whle whteboard sessons are frequent for data workers, they aren't excellent. The content on the board s exhausting to archve or share wth others who should not current n the sesson. People are sometimes busy copyng the whteboard content to ther notepads when they should spend tme sharng and absorbng deas.

Sometmes they put Do not Erase sgn on the whteboard and hope to return again and deal wth t later. In many circumstances, they neglect or the content s accdentally erased by different people. Moreover, meetng partcpants who are on conference call from distant locatons are not in a position to see the whteboard content material as the native partcpants do. With a purpose to enable ths, the meetng stes typically have to be lnked wth expensve vdeo conferencng equpments. Such equpment ncludes a pantlt-zoom camera whch could be managed by the distant partcpants. It s stll not at all times satsfactory because of vewng angle, lghtng varaton, and mage resoluton, wthout mentonng lack of functonalty of effectve archvng and ndexng of whteboard contents. Different equpment requres nstrumentaton ether n the pens reminiscent of Mmo from Vrtual Ink or on the whteboard such as SMARTBoard from SmartTech. 2 partcpants n actual tme usng a fracton of the bandwdth requred f vdeo conferencng equpment s used. To the better of our information, all exstng systems that seize whteboard content material n real tme requre nstrumentaton ether n the pens or on the whteboard.

Our system permits the person to wrte freely on any exstng whteboard surface usng any pen. To acheve ths, our system makes use of an off-the-shelf hgh-resoluton vdeo camera whch captures mages of the whteboard at 7.5Hz. From the nput vdeo sequence, our algorthm separates folks n the foreground from the whteboard background and extracts the pen strokes as they are deposted to the whteboard. To save lots of bandwdth, only newly wrtten pen strokes are compressed and sent to the distant partcpants. Moreover, the mages are whte-balanced and colorenhanced for higher compresson fee and higher vewng experence than the orgnal vdeo. There are a number of advantages n usng a hgh-resoluton vdeo digicam over the sensng mechansm of pen devces or electronc whteboard. They're: 1) Wthout requrng specal pens and erasers makes the nteracton much more pure. 2) Snce t s takng mages of the whteboard drectly, there s no ms-regstraton of the pen strokes. 3) As long because the customers turn on the system before erasng, the content material wll be preserved. Th is da​ta was ᠎done　 with the　help of G᠎SA C ontent Gen erat​or DE MO!

4) Images captured wth a camera provde way more contextual nformaton corresponding to who was wrtng and whch topc was dscussng (often by hand pontng). As an extenson to our system, we also appled our vdeo algorthm to capture handwrtng annotatons on prnted paperwork n real tme a standard scenaro n teleconferencng. As to be descrbed, we discovered solely a mnor algorthmc change was wanted. The paper s organzed as follows: Secton 2 dscusses related works. Secton 3 explans the desgn choces that we made and presents the archtecture of our system. Secton four explans the techncal challenges we encountered whle buldng the system. We dscuss the lmtatons of our system n Secton 5 and conclude n Secton 6. 2 Associated WORKS 2.1 Whteboard Capture Devces Many technologes exst to seize the whteboard content material automatcally. One of many earlest, the whteboard coper, s a specal whteboard wth a bult-n coper.