Technologies for Digital Museum
Virtual Reality Technologies

Teleoperation and Internet Camera

− Noboru Koshizuka −


Fig.1 Screen of Live Images of Jomon Ruins Broadcasting Network


The Internet can mediate communication between human and human, human and machine, and machine and machine. Recently, we have several equipments with networking functions which allow these euipments to be coltrolled via the Internet and to send information through it. This technical trend is sometimes called as "Everything IP".

Today, the most popular electronic equipment with networking function is video cameras. Such video camera, called as "Internet Camera (IC)", contains a network port and can send digital data of live pictures in MPEG, Moving JPG or Java. Additionally, the IC often allows operations such as zooming, tilting, and panning, via the network port. This function is called as "teleoperation". Thus, by using the teleoperable ICs, we can show live pictures to the world from anywhere the Internet or telephone works. Moreover, we can control the camera from anywhere in the world by the teleoperation function.

In this exhibition, by using the Internet Camera and teleoperation technologies, we have built "Jomon Ruins Broadcasting Network". The network consists of four Internet Camera sites located in famous Johmon ruins or museums of Jomon period which are equipped with teleoperable ICs. Their live pictures are collected into the Internet Camera Server (ICS) in the University of Tokyo, and internet users in the world can see the live pictures by connecting our ICS.