The many-user networked virtual world system InterSpace" is described. This system's main purpose is to enhance the user's communication activities. In InterSpace, the real world information is embedded in the shared virtual world as a combination of video and CG images. Users can ovserve and access this information by simply looking and approaching embedded images. The concept of InterSpace and a prototype system of this service are introduced.

The goal of this research, as an integral component of virtual space teleconferencing systems, is to generate three-dimensional facial models from facial images and a to synthesize images of the models virtually viewed from different angles. Since there is a great gap between the images and 3 D model, we argue that it is necessary to have a base face model to provide a framework. The base model is built by carefully selecting and measuring a set of points on the face whose corresponding points can be readily identified in the input images, and another set of points that can be determined from the first point set. The input images are a front view and a side view of the face. First the extremal boundaries are extracted or interpolated, and the face features such as eyes, nose and mouth are extracted. The extracted features are then matched between the two images, and their 3 D positions calculated. Using these 3 D data, the prepared base face model is modified to approximate the face. Finally, images of the modified 3 D model are synthesized by assuming new virtual viewing angles. The originality and significance of this work lies in that the face model can be automatically generated.