Virtual Strangers: Finding People Using Ambient Social Cues

Virtual Strangers is a tool for visualizing a community and identifying interesting individuals within that community. Using life-sized 3D animation and spatialized natural audio it provides a sense of being physically immersed in the group being visualized. Individuals in the community are represented using the same ambient cues that are available in a human crowd, including abstractions of physical appearance, motion quality, speech fragments, and interactions with other individuals. Virtual Strangers can be used as a directory for natural groups including business organizations or professional or social gatherings, or as a tool for studying group dynamics.