Enhancing videoconferencing using spatially varying sensing

Human vision can be characterized as a variable resolution system-the region around the fovea (point of attention) is observed with great detail, whereas the periphery is viewed in lesser detail. In this work, we show that spatially varying sensing (resembling the human eye) can indeed be useful in videoconferencing. A system that can incorporate multiple and moving foveae is described. There are various possible ways of implementing multiple foveae and combining information from them. Some of these alternative strategies are discussed and results are compared. We also show the advantage of using spatially varying sensing as a preprocessor to JPEG. The methods described here can be useful in designing teleconferencing systems and image databases.