BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Circle Twelve Inc. announced availability of a new product designed to support meetings between two remotely located teams. Called “DiamondTouch Immersion™”, it combines the multi-user interactive DiamondTouch™ table with a second display, vertically mounted, for video conferencing.
The DiamondTouch Immersion system consists of a 42-inch horizontal interactive tabletop computer display for sharing documents and other digital information, a 42-inch vertically-mounted display with integrated cameras and speakers, plus furniture with seating for four. With an internet connection, two DiamondTouch Immersion systems connect to support meetings between two remotely located teams.
“We wanted to integrate our multi-user touch technology with video conferencing equipment and raise the bar in terms of the immersive telepresence experience, and I believe we have come up with something compelling,” said Adam Bogue, founder of Circle Twelve. “Of course, you can see hear the people at the other location, but with DiamondTouch Immersion everyone can interact simultaneously with documents and images. In fact, you can literally see the remote collaborators reach out of the video conferencing screen and onto the shared interactive tabletop.”
The DiamondTouch Immersion system features several patented technologies, including:
- Multi-camera subsystem for capturing the faces of the people sitting around the table. The subsystem consists of two miniature cameras mounted directly onto the vertical display and software that finds the faces, creating a single composite video stream that can be shown at the remote DiamondTouch Immersion location using popular PC-based video conferencing applications such as Skype (Microsoft), WebEx (Cisco), RealPresence (Polycom), Sametime (IBM) or Google Hangouts. The software also allows users to provide a text label for each person, so the remote collaborators have a name with each face.
- Multi-user whiteboarding software for sharing and interacting with content. Built on the multi-user DiamondTouch table technology which has the ability to identify who is touching where, the whiteboarding software allows all users at both locations to touch and interact simultaneously using personalized annotation tools.
- Immersive visualization software for indicating which remote collaborator is interacting on the tabletop. When one of the remote participants draws on the screen, a virtual arm with an extended finger appears at the leading edge of the line as it is being drawn. The arm comes from the direction of the person who is interacting, and it appears with a colored “glow” that matches the frame of that person’s image on the videoconferencing screen so that it is clear who is doing what.
“The cost of video conferencing equipment is justified based on the time and money saved on business travel. But to replace actual face-to-face meetings, just watching slide presentations does not cut it,” added Adam Bogue. “Business teams need tools to support spontaneity, brain-storming and decision making. DiamondTouch Immersion provides this because it lets everyone interact together.”
Initially, DiamondTouch Immersion will be targeted for use by large and mid-sized corporations with engineering, marketing and management teams that are spread over two or more locations. Systems are available for purchase directly from Circle Twelve.
About Circle Twelve: Circle Twelve Inc is a privately-held company founded in 2008 and focused on helping people work together. Circle Twelve makes and sells multi-user computer hardware and software products to support small group collaboration. Additional information is available at www.circletwelve.com. DiamondTouch and DiamondTouch Immersion are trademarks of Circle Twelve Inc.
