Chalktalk VR/AR

Update: The chalktalk VR/AR is presented in the Siggraph Asia 2017.

Update: Now open-source! https://github.com/kenperlin/chalktalk. We are inviting people to contribute topics and collaborate on the project. Feel free to contact us!

Our research is being sponsored by Oculus, to support future Chalktalk-based classroom education. 

 

Multiplayer in VR/AR is trending. SteamVR/OculusVR also supported this feature nowadays. However, since the lacking of details in VR/AR, the communication ways for multiplayer in VR/AR becomes a new challenge.

In the current world, people using body language, talking and virtural objects sharing to enhance it. 

Limitations are obvious:

  1. Avatars lacks detail of human behavior
  2. People can be unwilling to talk, especially when not physically co-located
  3. Communication via virtual object sharing is limited by what kind of objects people can share

Here we propose a new way for communication in VR/AR, which is called Chalktalk. It is an intelligent, dynamic and interactive tool based on drawing, as shown in the video in the front.

The main features are as below:

  1. Dynamically generated content based on drawing
  2. Procedurally generated content based on style
  3. Interactive among multiple objects.

-The technical is very neat, features are:

  • Web-based application
  • Cross-platform capability, ability to combine WebVR/WebAR
  • Node.js, server + broadcast capability, to support multiplayer experience
  • Simple AI for recognition input patterns. A self-learning system will be added in future work
  • Simple GUI-based editor for adding new features
  • High-performance rendering implemented in WebGL, to achieve real-time procedural generate content rendering
  • A Unity plugin is also provided