Dave Snowdon

User embodiment in collaborative virtual environments

This paper explores the issue of user embodiment within collaborative virtual environments. By user embodiment we mean the provision of users with appropriate body images so as to represent them to others and also to themselves. By collaborative virtual environments we mean multi-user virtual reality systems which explicitly support co-operative work (although we argue that the results of our exploration may also be applied to other kinds of collaborative system). The main part of the paper identifies a list of embodiment design issues including: presence, location, identity, activity, availability, history of activity, viewpoint, actionpoint, gesture, facial expression, voluntary versus involuntary expression, degree of presence, reflecting capabilities, physical properties, active bodies, time and change, manipulating your view of others, representation across multiple media, autonomous and distributed body parts, truthfulness and efficiency. Following this, we show how these issues are reflected in our own DIVE and MASSIVE prototype systems and also show how they can be used to analyse several other existing collaborative systems.

Inside MASSIVE-3: flexible support for data consistency and world structuring

MASSIVE-3 is our third generation of Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) system. This paper describes the goals, design and implementation of key aspects of the MASSIVE-3 system, and in particular its support for data consistency, and world structuring and interest management. MASSIVE-3 adopts a distributed database model, in which all changes to items in the database are represented by explicit events that are themselves visible to the system. Networking is logically multicast, but physically client-server (the reasons for this are explained). MASSIVE-3 makes application behaviours explicitly visible within the database in the form of “Behaviour” data items. MASSIVE-3 implements and extends work on consistency by the University of Reading. In particular, it adds an explicit “Update Request” data item, which allows the system to support a number of different consistency mechanisms within a single virtual world. World structuring in MASSIVE-3 extends the notion of “Locales” from the SPLINE system to include distinctions based on functional class, organisational scope and fidelity. It also allows flexible and general replication and rendering policies to be specified and used for interest management.

VR-VIBE: A Virtual Environment for Co-operative Information Retrieval

We present a virtual reality application called VR‐VIBE which is intended to support the co‐operative browsing and filtering of large document stores. VR‐VIBE extends a visualisation approach proposed in a previous two dimensional system called VIBE into three dimensions, allowing more information to be visualised at one time and supporting more powerful styles of interaction, The essence of VR‐VIBE is that multiple users can explore the results of applying several simultaneous queries to a corpus of documents. By arranging the queries into a spatial framework, the system shows the relative attraction of each document to each query by its spatial position and also shows the absolute relevance of each document to all of the queries. Users may then navigate the space, select individual documents, control the display according to a dynamic relevance threshold and dynamically drag the queries to new positions to see the effect on the document space. Co‐operative browsing is supported by directly embodying users and providing them with the ability to interact over live audio connections and to attach brief textual annotations to individual documents. Finally, we conclude with some initial observations gleaned from our experience of constructing VR‐VIBE and using it in the laboratory setting.

Pollen: using people as a communication medium

Abstract In this paper, we propose a novel kind of network that uses people instead of wires (or other communication media) to carry message packets between devices and between physical places. We will describe how this movement of people can be harnessed to allow the communication of electronic messages, albeit in a way that is relatively unreliable and unpredictable compared with traditional networks. This new kind of network infrastructure has a number of advantages, such as low cost and scalability, and opens the way for numerous new kinds of application scenarios.

Learning to detect user activity and availability from a variety of sensor data

Using a networked infrastructure of easily available sensors and context-processing components, we are developing applications for the support of workplace interactions. Notions of activity and availability are learned from labeled sensor data based on a Bayesian approach. The higher-level information on the users is then automatically derived from low-level sensor information in order to facilitate informal ad hoc communications between peer workers in an office environment.

Diffusing information in organizational settings: learning from experience

Recommender systems selectively circulate information enriched with comments and feedback based on peoples experience. These systems filter information in a semi-automatic and high-quality way in order to support a community during their work or leisure practices. However recommender systems are usually separate tools that require a degree of effort to be used, both when receiving information and to insert new feedback. In this paper we present our informal experiences with the use of multiple user interfaces (interactive large screen, email, paper and PDA) as means to improve the diffusion of information through an organizational unit and to improve access to information stored within an existing recommender system

Embodiments, avatars, clones and agents for multi-user, multi-sensory virtual worlds

Abstract.This paper explores the issue of user embodiment within collaborative virtual environments. By user embodiment we mean the provision of users with appropriate body images so as to represent them to others and also to themselves. By collaborative virtual environments we mean multi-user virtual reality systems which explicitly support cooperative work (although we argue that the results of our exploration may also be applied to other kinds of collaborative system). The main part of the paper identifies a list of embodiment design issues grouped by the general themes of personal representation, conveying activity, embodiment in heterogeneous systems, embodiment of agents, and ethical issues. These issues are illustrated with examples from our own DIVE and MASSIVE collaborative virtual environments. The paper also uses this set of issues as an analytical framework for comparing a number of other communication technologies.

Collaborative Virtual Environments: Digital Spaces and Places for CSCW: An Introduction

In the late 1980s Virtual Reality (VR) burst onto the public stage propelled by a wave of media interest and related science fiction novels such as Neuromancer by William Gibson (Gibson, 1989). VR promised to revolutionize the way in which we experience and interact with computers, and research into the field mushroomed. More recently, the hype surrounding VR has died down and, although it is receiving less public attention, serious work is continuing with the aim of producing useful and usable technology. At the centre of current work related to VR is the field of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). This field has as its goal the provision of new, more effective means of using computers as tools for communication and information sharing with others. Many CVE systems have been constructed. Some of these are desktop systems and applications; but large public virtual spaces have also been constructed (such as Alpha World at http://www.activeworlds.com/; see Chapter 15). CVEs are also being used to experiment with new forms of art and interactive television (Benford et al., 1997a,b; Benford et al, 2000a).

Staging a public poetry performance in a collaborative virtual environment

We discuss the design of a CVE poetry performance and experiences arising from staging it to two hundred members of the public. The design, a collaborative effort between computer scientists, artists, poets and producers, addresses issues of virtual world structure; embodiment of performers and audience; navigation interfaces; temporal structure of the event; and mixed reality presentation. Experiences include virtual audience members often ignoring the poets and conflicting attitudes towards embodiment. New CVE design possibilities are proposed, including object centred interaction, context sensitive interaction and tools to define and manage the spatial and temporal structure of events.

Informing the design of collaborative virtual environments

This paper addresses the design of Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs). More specifically, it considers key design issues concerning the use of either real world ‘facsimile’ representations or more abstracted means of delivering CVEs. We suggest that the use of ethnographic studies of the context-of-use of the CVE under development is a useful means of informing these design issues in contrast to more in-principle means of drawing conclusions. This approach is illustrated by informing the development of a virtual environment from and ethnographic study of work.