User`s guide

1 Introduction
At Monash University’s School of Computer Science and Software Engineering (CSSE), videocon-
ferencing systems have been installed at the staff rooms in its Clayton and Caulfield campuses
(see Figure 1). The “video wall”, as it is known, is used for inter-campus seminars, departmental
meetings, discussion between staff members, as well as informal chatting.
Figure 1: CSSE video wall (from Abramson 2000)
Response to the videoconferencing system has been mixed. While many people find the system
useful, others are concerned with privacy issues. In addition, there exist several limitations such
as the inability to control the camera’s field of view or capture videoconferencing sessions to disk,
which would be useful in a videoconferenced meeting.
The camera, which in the existing system is approximately 60 cm above the floor (as shown in
Figure 1), could be positioned higher above the floor. The current low position is required so that
the camera lens avoids the glare produced by the projector, but the current camera position requires
that people sit a reasonable distance from the wall to be able to see a person’s face well.
Opportunities exist for expansion of the video wall’s use, such as infra-red communication between
notebook or handheld computers on either side of the wall. A system also needs to be developed to
switch between video links before a third video wall node can be installed.
This project aims to address privacy issues by introducing reciprocity and add improvements by
implementing a user interface for remote camera control and repositioning the cameras at sitting
eye-level together with an anti-glare system. It also aims to allow infra-red signals to be transmitted
“across the wall”, by means of infra-red transceivers connected to computers located beside the
video wall. Automatic video wall switching can be implemented by using infra-red motion detectors
to decide which rooms contain people, and linking those rooms together. The features are designed
to be integrated into the existing system.
This thesis begins with an overview of videoconferencing systems and infra-red communication in
Section 2. The aims of the project and the reasons for choosing to implement each feature are given
in Section 3. Implementation and development of the systems are covered in Section 4, and the
systems are then discussed and analysed in Section 5. Future work and conclusions are presented in
Section 6.
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