Nuvixa will utilize newsoftware developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  The technology was developed by Dr. SanjayPatel and collaborators Dr. Minh Do, Dr. Wen-Mei Hwu, Quang Nguyen and DennisLin at the University of Illinois’ College of Electrical and ComputerEngineering.

The technology is a depthimage-based rendering 3D propagation algorithm. Essentially, the algorithm willanalyze a video feed, and then be able to separate the person from backgroundelements. The algorithm is able to maintain high quality audio-visual qualitywhile also staying within the computational bounds of real-time applications.This allows for virtual presence without lags or delays.

Nuvixa will provide itscustomers with presence through a virtual green-screen, where they can chatwith friends in a virtual space complete with interesting backgrounds. Thevirtual space can also be utilized as a presentation tool, as demonstrated byPatel in this video.Presenters can be in the same space as their PowerPoint or video presentation,allowing for a more realistic, face-to-face experience.

Nuvixa’s first productwill be a Skype plug-in that will allow video conferences to have differentbackgrounds. However, the potential for development is vast; variousapplications exist in education, business, entertainment, social networking andelectronic gaming.

Patel sums it up when hesays, “That’s what presence is all about. What I emphasize is that thistechnology is something that I think everybody will have access to in the nextfew years. So the kind of presence that you and I will be able to do is goingto be radically improved – better emotional connection – than what we areseeing today.”

For more information, goto http://www.nuvixa.com/