The use of video conferencing or telephony, which allows remote parties to both see and hear one another, is becoming increasingly popular. As used herein, “video telephony” refers to communications using both video and audio transmitted over a communications network. Such applications facilitate remote communications by providing a visual image of each conference participant. Accordingly, video conferencing allows parties to communicate audibly and visibly, without requiring lengthy and expensive travel.
In a typical video telephony application, a camera is positioned to obtain an image of the participants at each endpoint of the communication. The image of the participants at one endpoint is then provided to the participants at the other endpoints. Accordingly, the video telecommunications interaction can include two or more endpoints, and one or more participants at each endpoint.
The image obtained from an endpoint is displayed to participants at other endpoints. For an endpoint in communication with two or more other endpoints, the images from the other endpoints can be merged by a multipoint control unit associated with the video conference, such that the images are displayed simultaneously. Such simultaneous display may comprise tiling the images from other endpoints. Typically, tiling comprising giving each incoming call an equally sized box in which the image is displayed. However, an image from an endpoint included in a video conference may contain more than one person. As a result, the window allocated to such a call may be too small to effectively display all of the people included in the image.