Coordination of perceptual processes for computer mediated communication

In Computer Mediated Communication such as desktop video conferencing, static video cameras provide a restricted field of view of remote sites. The effective field of view can be enlarged, while maintaining the user's freedom of movement, by slaving a remote controlled camera to movements of the user's head. This paper concerns techniques for tracking of faces. We demonstrate that robustness and reliability can be increased by combining multiple perceptual processes such as eye blink detection, skin color histogram and cross correlation, that adapt to a variety of operating conditions. We illustrate our technique with CoMedi, a media-space currently under development.