Mixing remote locations using shared screen as virtual stage

This paper introduces a visual communication system that integrates images displayed on a shared screen and people in front of the screen using depth information obtained from a stereo camera. Conventional video conferencing systems convey PC screen contents and video of local and remote participants in different channels, making interactions among them difficult. The proposed system maps persons in the foreground onto the screen preserving relative position and size. A series of preliminary experiments is conducted to compare the performance of the proposed system against conventional systems.