Face to Face Augmented Reality - Broadening the Horizons of AR Communication

When users wear Augmented Reality (AR) Head Mounted Displays (HMDs), they occlude most parts of the face. While body language is crucial in effective team communication and negotiation tactics, the effect of eye contact and facial expressions cannot be neglected. However, the degree to which users in AR environments can expressively interact with each other is hindered by HMDs which occlude a large portion of the face and do not realistically blend with the terrain surroundings. Recent developments generate highly photorealistic avatars in Virtual Reality (VR) but they do not solve a multitude of questions which include blending of the virtual model in an AR setting, real-time performance along with high fidelity of temporal coherence as well estimation of high-resolution outputs. We propose to develop a technique for enabling natural and expressive face-to-face communication between subjects in AR environments by removing the HMD barrier where the virtual environments blend seamlessly with a photorealistic face model.