Smorkalov A.Yu., Sadovin I.A. System for transferring lectures into virtual world vAcademia using features of Microsoft Kinect and stream processors

Abstract: the article reviews techniques and architecture of a system for transferring “live” lectures into virtual world vAcademia. The system records lector’s voice and uses Microsoft Kinect for capturing teacher’s gestures transforming this data into lector’s avatar animation. With the performance capabilities of streaming processors the content of the projector’s screen used by teacher is transferred directly to the virtual world and displayed in shared graphical workspace, and the additional analysis of the image from Kinect video camera is performed to more accurately determine the position of the body of the teacher. The stream processors allowed eff ectively implement the projector’s screen transfer to the virtual world shared workspace and also capture and recognize colored makers on the teacher’s body with little or no loss of performance. Using Kinect for lecture capture together with capturing image from the projector or interactive board and displaying it in the virtual world could allow teachers to use virtual worlds as a powerful learning tool while remaining in the familiar learning environment. That is the purpose of this research.

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