Avatar Communications covers real-time conversational avatar systems in 5G contexts, targeting the MPEG Avatar Representation Format (ARF) and its use for avatar-based communications. Avatars are synthesised digital representations of participants, animated in real time from audio and video input, enabling immersive video calls and virtual presence experiences.
5G-MAG's work looks at the tools needed to encode, render, and stream avatars over 5G networks: the avatar representation itself, its animation, and the media transport that carries it.
The Problem It Solves
Before ARF, an avatar-based call needed the sender's capture/tracking system and the receiver's rendering engine to come from the same vendor's proprietary avatar format — there was no common way to describe the avatar asset itself or the animation stream driving it. ARF standardises both once: the base avatar (stored and exchanged as an ISOBMFF or Zip-based asset) and the animation stream (a sequence of compact Avatar Animation Units) are separate, interoperable formats, so a conforming client can load an avatar from one vendor and drive it with animation produced by a different vendor's tracking system, over an ordinary 5G call.
Open Source, Built Together
Reference Tools for This Project
The real, running software for this technology — 4 repositories.
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