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# 1. INTRODUCTION
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The Future Tech Labs (FT-Labs) are part of a new collaboration between the University of Turku (UTU) and the University of Namibia (UNAM), creating an innovative technological bridge between Europe and Southern Africa. They also form part of an interdepartmental collaboration within UTU with respect to participant research activities. The vision for the FT-Labs is that they form state-of-the-art remote presence and real-time capture facilities for research and education, targeting the following 5 scenarios:
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* **S1:** An integrated non-intrusive data capture and analysis lab for participant studies across departments and faculties, either local only or remote collaboration studies.
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* **S2:** A strong functional and showcase platform to boost the research quality and international impact of our remote co-presence and mixed-reality technologies or applications.
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* **S3:** Support for ground-breaking research into the use of real-time AI-based feedback and analytics during collaborative remote work to enhance working practices.
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* **S4:** A synchronous distance learning facility enabling improved distance education and novel pedagogical research into such practices on an enriched medium.
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* **S5:** Improved collaboration amongst researchers and other partners both here and in Namibia, where UTU is increasingly present but currently poorly connected technologically.
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Within the broad vision for the use of the space, our focus remains on ensuring students on our satellite degree programmes feel as integrated as technologically possible with their fellow students studying in Finland. Before initiating full scale development of the labs it is necessary to construct a prototype system to prove the concept, and it is this prototype that is specified in this document. The remainder of this section details the purpose, scope and necessary background materials for the prototype. Subsequent sections then provide more detailed descriptions of the system and specific requirements. Requirements are given for the final FT-Lab concept and are then reframed to the scope of the prototype. Some of the requirements may therefore be unachievable at this stage but provide a vision for the future, this will be clearly highlighted for each such requirement.
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## 1.1 PURPOSE
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The purpose of this document is to detail primarily the software requirements, and secondarily the hardware requirements, for a prototype to explore the feasibility of specific remote presence technologies for use within our envisioned FT-Labs, whilst also acting as a platform in its own right for research activities. This document also details the expected or required research or other usage activities that will be carried out with the prototype, it acts as a specification of these activities also.
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The purpose of the prototype is to showcase the potential of the technologies, and our capabilities, to potential funders and partners, as well as to initiate new strands of research at UTU into remote presence technologies to complement our existing activities in Mixed Reality. It is our aim and intention to build our research expertise in remote presence to become a global player in this area. Additionally we wish to become a significant player in collaborations with African and other international partners through our expertise in remote presence technologies and through such facilities that we can offer to support collaborations or this kind. A number of academic research publications are expected to result from the use of the prototype, if not from the development of the prototype itself.
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## 1.2 INTENDED AUDIENCE AND USE
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This requirements document is directed to a broad audience within the University of Turku and is not to be viewed externally. Capstone project team(s), employed programmers, research assistants and researchers within the Department of Future Technologies are the primary target, however, the following departments at the University are also to be involved and will also have access to the document:
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1. Turku School of Economics, Disrupt Lab: They are to be users of the prototype for conducting participant research and for demonstrating the technologies potential for businesses.
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2. Department of Education
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The document is both a specification for the software development to take place and a guide for usage activities for the prototype. The document may be revised and will be the bridge between the different users of the document to coordinate all action related to the FT-Lab prototype. Separate documents may be developed to further detail individual elements such as a specification of work for a Capstone project team or further details of research activities in the Disrupt Lab. However, all such documents must refer back to this document, must tie to specific objectives stated here and must not contradict any requirements given here. The document is intended to prevent additional brainstorming and requirements creep that would undermine our ability to make progress, instead giving a concrete target to aim form. Therefore any additional requirements must be negotiated and included in a revised version of this document and not through informal discussions alone.
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## 1.3 SCOPE
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The prototype is to focus on tele-immersive video and interfaces required to operate the free-viewpoint tele-immersive video system by a range of end-users for the purpose of supporting two way remote collaboration activities over the internet and for capturing a scene for analysis purposes. The goals and objectives for the prototype are:
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##### G1: Clarify technical feasibility of tele-immersive video in our lab setting for S1-S5
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* **O1.1:** Generate a live 3D reconstruction of two remote labs and all of their occupants by October 2019.
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* **O1.2:** Provide a measure of achievable real-time level-of-detail (LOD) for the 3D reconstruction on the existing hardware platform by November 2019.
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* **O1.3:** Provide minimum and maximum bandwidth estimates for the bidirectional sharing of 3D lab representations between two locations by December 2019.
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* **O1.4:** Report on the performance, quality and usability of real-time scene rendering in a web browser by October 2019. Specifically detail the achievable level-of-detail, the latency of the live feed and the latency of interactions to control the scene view point.
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##### G2: Provide a demonstration platform for potential external partners or funding bodies.
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* **O2.1:** Create marketing videos and presentations at multiple points during the project to highlight current capabilities and visions.
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* **O2.2:** Provide a functioning online trial of the platform on the UTU website using pre-recorded materials, with an initial version by December 2019.
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* **O2.3:** Create a website on remote presence that demonstrates it in action with diverse groups.
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* **O2.4:** Produce a publication on UX/UI design for tele-immersive systems.
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##### G3: Act as a starting point for new research directions into remote presence.
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* **O3.1:** Have an individual with expertise in adaptive bitrate media streaming of live materials on moderate to high latency connections.
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* **O3.2:** Have an individual with excellent CUDA and CPU optimization expertise to enable us to compete and exceed on system performance.
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* **O3.3:** Produce a publication on real-time stereo matching algorithms for full room capture.
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* **O3.4:** Produce a publication on point cloud compression and streaming.
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* **O3.5:** Produce a publication on the overall architecture of the tele-immersive system.
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* **O3.6:** Produce a publication on intelligent scene framing in 3D tele-immersive systems.
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##### G4: To be a platform for conducting novel small scale participant research studies.
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