Oliver Otto

Constructing a Gazebo: supporting teamwork in a tightly coupled, distributed task in virtual reality

Many tasks require teamwork. Team members may work concurrently, but there must be some occasions of coming together. Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) allow distributed teams to come together across distance to share a task. Studies of CVE systems have tended to focus on the sense of presence or copresence with other people. They have avoided studying close interaction between us-ers, such as the shared manipulation of objects, because CVEs suffer from inherent network delays and often have cumbersome user interfaces. Little is known about the ef-fectiveness of collaboration in tasks requiring various forms of object sharing and, in particular, the concurrent manipu-lation of objects. This paper investigates the effectiveness of supporting teamwork among a geographically distributed group in a task that requires the shared manipulation of objects. To complete the task, users must share objects through con-current manipulation of both the same and distinct at-tributes. The effectiveness of teamwork is measured in terms of time taken to achieve each step, as well as the impression of users. The effect of interface is examined by comparing various combinations of walk-in cubic immersive projection technology (IPT) displays and desktop devices.

A review of telecollaboration technologies with respect to closely coupled collaboration

Many existing Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) systems have two major deficiencies. Firstly, they support the situation of face-to-face meetings poorly. Secondly, many systems deal badly with data sets and workspaces. This paper outlines the requirements for a class of CSCW tools that would focus on supporting closely coupled collaborative activity around shared objects. These requirements include the ability to refer to a common model of the shared space through speech and gesture and for each person to be able to manipulate objects within that space. Based on that, this paper describes the current state-of-the-art in collaborative technologies with a critique of how well they support the required collaborative activities. Essentially, this paper suggests that, as of now, only through immersive Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) we are close to being able to achieve the seamless collaboration that exists in a face to face meeting.

A review on effective closely-coupled collaboration using immersive CVE's

Many teamwork tasks require a close coupling between the interactions of members of a team. For example, intention and opinion must be communicated, while synchronously manipulating shared artefacts. In face-to-face interaction this communication and manipulation is seamless. Transferring the straightforwardness of such collaboration onto remote located teams is technologically challenging. This survey paper explains why immersive collaborative virtual environments (CVE) suit such tasks. The effectiveness of application of this technology depends on a complex set of factors that determine the efficiency of collaboration. We examine these factors and their interrelationships within the framework of a taxonomy focussed on supporting closely-coupled collaboration using immersive CVEs. In particular we compare the impact of display configurations from distinct aspects within the interaction metaphors: look-in, reach-in and step-in.

A study of event traffic during the shared manipulation of objects within a collaborative virtual environment

Event management must balance consistency and responsiveness above the requirements of shared object interaction within a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) system. An understanding of the event traffic during collaborative tasks helps in the design of all aspects of a CVE system. The application, user activity, the display interface, and the network resources, all play a part in determining the characteristics of event management. Linked cubic displays lend themselves well to supporting natural social human communication between remote users. To allow users to communicate naturally and subconsciously, continuous and detailed tracking is necessary. This, however, is hard to balance with the real-time consistency constraints of general shared object interaction. This paper aims to explain these issues through a detailed examination of event traffic produced by a typical CVE, using both immersive and desktop displays, while supporting a variety of collaborative activities. We analyze event traffic during a highly collaborative task requiring various forms of shared object manipulation, including the concurrent manipulation of a shared object. Event sources are categorized and the influence of the form of object sharing as well as the display device interface are detailed. With the presented findings the paper wishes to aid the design of future systems.

Factors influencing flow of object focussed collaboration in collaborative virtual environments

Creativity is believed to be helped by an uncluttered state of mind known as flow and as the trend grows towards less immersive displays to produce an uncluttered workplace, we ask the question “Does immersion matter to the flow of distributed group work?”. The aim of this work is to study the impact of level of immersion on workflow and presence during object focussed distributed group work, and to discuss the relevance of these and other factors to supporting flow and creativity. This is approached through a comprehensive literature survey and significant new results. The study attempts to introduce a breadth of factors and relationships as opposed to proving a hypothesis and thus takes a wide qualitative rather than deep quantitative approach to testing and analysis.

Supporting social human communication between distributed walk-in displays

Future teleconferencing may enhance communication between remote people by supporting non-verbal communication within an unconstrained space where people can move around and share the manipulation of artefacts. By linking walk-in displays with a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) platform we are able to physically situate a distributed team in a spatially organised social and information context. We have found this to demonstrate unprecedented naturalness in the use of space and body during non-verbal communication and interaction with objects.However, relatively little is known about how people interact through this technology, especially while sharing the manipulation of objects. We observed people engaged in such a task while geographically separated across national boundaries. Our analysis is organised into collaborative scenarios, that each requires a distinct balance of social human communication with consistent shared manipulation of objects.Observational results suggest that walk-in displays do not suffer from some of the important drawbacks of other displays. Previous trials have shown that supporting natural non-verbal communication, along with responsive and consistent shared object manipulation, is hard to achieve. To better understand this problem, we take a close look at how the scenario impacts on the characteristics of event traffic. We conclude by suggesting how various strategies might reduce the consistency problem for particular scenarios.

The integration of a viscosity simulator in a chemistry laboratory

We integrated an interactive viscosity simulator into a pre-laboratory session in an attempt to improve training in a chemistry laboratory. The students were divided into two groups, the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG). The students of the EG participated in a pre-laboratory session with additional instruction, including the use of the simulation on personal computers and other discussions. After the pre-labs, these students participated in the design of the experiments using the simulator as an educational tool, and then carried out the experiments; in addition, they processed their data on spreadsheets, and they pooled their results through a Local Area Network (LAN). Students of the CG performed the experiments following the traditional teaching procedure (recipe-labs), without attending the pre-lab session. Comparison of the two groups showed that the EG students valued the opportunity to question the teacher in the pre-laboratory session, and that they found this teaching procedure useful. As a result they felt more confident when they entered a laboratory and they understood better the theory behind the experiment than the CG students. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2007, 8 (2), 220-231.]

Importance of communication influences on a highly collaborative task

Social interaction is a key driving force behind any team activity. Real time closely coupled interaction, where we quickly see the effect of our actions on others, is an important feature of social interaction. For example, smiling and returning a smile, shaking hands and passing a gift or business card are some of the most important interactions in the real world. Collaborative virtual environments (CVE) offer the potential for social interaction between geographically distributed groups. Closely coupled interaction is, however, very difficult in present CVE systems. This is because this medium lags behind real world communication in terms of representation, consistency and responsiveness. This paper takes a psychological perspective, describing how the primary forms of human communication in the real world map to those in the virtual. We discuss how each form of communication relates to the feeling of co-presence, giving real examples of behaviour observed in an example application, the virtual gazebo. We present detailed results from user evaluation, focusing on the perceived importance of these influences on collaboration.

Collaboration around Shared Objects in Immersive Virtual Environments

Many teamwork tasks in the real world require the shared manipulation of objects, both sequentially and concurrently. Collaborative virtual environments (CVE) bring remote people together in an interactive, spatial social and information context that is distributed over a network. Supporting highly collaborative tasks in a natural manner requires a thourough understanding of event traffic as distinct forms of shared object manipulation are bound to diverse real-time and consistency constraints. This position paper summarises our findings during user trials around the shared manipulation of objects within linked immersive displays and introduce a CVE system with a flexible event-handling framework that allows task-oriented concictency control.

The impact of display system and embodiment on closely coupled collaboration between remote users

Trends towards greater collaboration between organisations increase the need for effective, efficient and safe ways to collaborate within distance teams. Technology has already greatly reduced the need for face-to-face meetings. Telephones, text messaging, email, web, and classical video conferencing have all thrived in supporting specific aspects of tele-working. There is, however, still a need for face-to-face meetings, even though the cost to business individuals and the environment can be significant. The holy grail of tele-collaboration is to support the full range of communication used within a co-located group. Psychologists categorise social communication between humans as verbal, non-verbal, the role of objects and that of the environment [1]. Immersive displays surround the senses within an information world, which, compared to desktop systems, is believed by some to increase the feeling of presence and by others to increase task performance. Immersive Collaborative Virtual Environments (ICVE) allow a number of people to share an interactive synthetic experience from a true first person perspective. The use of these technologies in tele-immersion allows geographically separated people to interact using a variety of verbal and non-verbal communication within a shared meaningful environment and through shared information objects. We believe that this is the first technology to support these four primary categories of social human communication in a natural and intuitive way. Linking walk-in displays, such as Caves, supports unprecedented naturalness of communication between physically remote people by placing them together in a shared scene in which they can naturally move around, talk, gesture and manipulate shared objects. We have investigated the impact of display