The virtual Tim Flannery on display. Image by James Sheridan and Torben Sko.
People are now able to have an out-of-body experience of a different kind and take on the persona of one of Australia's most well-known environmentalists, thanks to a new avatar system developed at The Australian National University and on display tomorrow. Using the latest face-tracking technology, the system allows people to control a virtual representation of Tim Flannery. Created by a group of students from the ANU College of Engineering, including PhD candidates Torben Sko and James Sheridan, the system invites people to 'become' the environment scientist. 'There's a virtual Tim Flannery in the system that people control using nothing more than their facial expressions,' explained Mr Sko. 'Smile and the virtual Tim smiles, blink and he blinks. So, on this level people can virtually 'become' Tim. 'Using a web-camera and piece of face-tracking software, developed by local Canberra company Seeing Machines, the system picks up on whether anyone is viewing the work.
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