Improving Visual Awareness by Real-Time 2D Facial Animation for Ubiquitous Collaboration

Video-based channel that can transmit people´s facial expression information is designed to support real-time interaction between collaborators. Yet exchanging facial video in ubiquitous environment is confined by the low bandwidth and limited computational resources on mobile embedded devices. In this paper, we present a novel two dimensional (2D) facial animation communication system which enables the embedded sites to gain awareness of PC users´ facial expression via facial animation. The system was examined by experiments and survey. Results show that 2D facial animation provides participants´ emotion awareness and is a novel visual communication pattern.