1998 Volume 3 Issue 2 Pages 41-46
Although modern telecommunication systems have changed our social communication styles so drastically, audibly challenged people cannot take benefits of them based on phonetic media. This paper introduces a new telecommunication system for sign language utilizing virtual reality technology, which solves natural sign conversation on an ultra low bit-rate channel. The system transmits kinematic data of the upper body motions instead of visual images of the body. The avatar which acts as the sender appears on recivers terminal and mediates sign conversation. This avatar-based telecommunication system realizes high frame rate and high resolution on an analogue telephone line. A prototype system, S-TEL, implementing the above idea on UDP/IP, guaranteed an effective communication for sign conversation via a lossy channel, which is superior to a conventional Internet video chat.
