Video mirroring and iconic gestures: enhancing basic videophones to provide visual coaching and visual control

In this paper we present concepts and architectures for mirroring and gesturing into remote sites when video conferencing. Mirroring enables those at one site to visually coach those at a second site by pointing at locally referenceable objects in the scene reflected back to the second site. Thus mirroring provides a way to train people at remote sites in practical tasks such as operating equipment and assembling or fixing things. We also discuss how video mirroring can be extended to enable visual control of remote mechanisms, even when using basic videophones, by using a visual interpreter at the remote site to process transmitted visual cues and derive intended control actions in the remote scene.