Stefano Panunzi
Telecontiguity: tangible videoconferencing
(estratto da E-LEARNING FOR ARCHITECTURE
Stefano Panunzi e Rosalba Belibani – Gangemi ed. 2011)
The term telecontiguity 1 relates to the experimental didactic research of Information Communication Technology (ICT) as applied to architecture and urban spaces, led by and coordinated by Stefano Panunzi , primary researcher and teacher in the Faculty of Architecture of the Sapienza University of Rome 2 , and co-founder of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Molise, where he has been able to create a functioning prototype telecontiguity system. This system, which is a natural evolution in videoconferencing, is unique in its kind and represents an Italian achievement that is totally competitive at an international level in its effectiveness, simplicity and economic cost, compared to similar research in the field of telepresence in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan 3 .
The research carried out by the Unit of the University of Molise within the scope of Research PRIN 2006 aimed at perfecting the telecontiguity system to create an interactive screen. Telecontiguity can be regarded as the new frontier of telepresence in that it can transform a simple pane of glass into a shared tangible surface for video-communication. The tangibility lies in the fact that a person can approach the screen and even touch it, while continuing to be visible where they actually are and retaining their actual dimensions, without the limits of positioning/distance/framing that are found in normal videoconferencing. The screen literally ‘sees', or rather films, whatever is in front of it, like a scanner; in fact, the image of whatever is in contact with the glass is in perfect 1:1 scale. The participants can thus communicate face to face at the normal distance of a natural conversation, and can look each other in the eye as if they were separated merely by a pane of glass; there is a reciprocal contact between both sides at the scale of 1:1. This novel technological system guarantees that there is a mutual correspondence between the two transmitted and received images by setting up a ‘fourth wall' in common to both spaces, making them appear contiguous and adjoining, even though in reality they are far apart. The possible applications are incalculable; in the specific field of teaching design, experiments have been carried out that allowed several people to talk to one another face to face, produce designs simultaneously and build models that were half on one side and half on the other. This system of telecontiguity is particularly effective when setting up an audio-visual juxtaposition surface which can coincide with such elements of architectonic and urban space as doors, windows, walls, facades, etc., and that can be regarded as a supplement to a real space ( augmented reality : see Flavia Sparacino MIT, USA) without any need to darken the surroundings.
NOTES
1 The neologism telecontiguity is literally a contradiction in terms, referring to the possibility of making two distant spaces appear to be adjacent to one another, as if they were separated by a pane of glass; the image is tele-transmitted at actual scale and is produced by a fixed camera. The innovation of the system lies in the reciprocal correspondence between the frame of the projected image and that of the filmed image, forming a real surface of reciprocal contact, which at the present stage, can be as large as the wall of a room.
2 Research into new teaching technologies began in 1986 at the International eCAADe Conference ‘Teaching and Research Experience with CAAD'. Since 1989 it has been officially funded
(Ministry of Education Research coordinated by Prof. Paola Coppola – Production of Multimedia Circuits for Teaching purposes, and continued from 2000 to 2004 in a European WINDS project coordinated by Prof. Mario De Grassi, and reached its first experimental stages in 2000 (Master in design of Interactive Spaces for Communication, created and coordinated by S.Panunzi and directed by Prof. Lucio Valerio Barbera), and tested on a first working prototype in 2006,. Since then the research has entered a stage of technological upgrading with applied experimentation, also thanks to timely funding by PRIN 2006 and from this year has been used in various experimental start-ups in different application environments (H3G SpA, Rome Architects' Association and the Trento Development Agency).
3 The most similar cases:
A) Clearboard 1 e 2 by Hiroshi Ishii, Minoru Kobayashi, NTT Human Interface Laboratories, Japan 1992
B) Interactive Video System British Telecommunications 2005, International patent refused
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