Collaborative Interaction in Virtual Environments

1
Collaborative InteractioninVirtual Environments

• Trevor J. Dodds
• Roy A. Ruddle
• Visualization and Virtual Reality Research Group
• School of Computing
• University of Leeds

2
e-Science and CVEs

• e-Science
• Globally distributed resources
• Communication between systems (Internet)
• CVEs
• Real-time, visual feedback for e-Science
• Crude collaborative interaction (at present)
• Example applications
• Urban planning
• Data visualization

3
Example applications
Urban planning Data visualization
The process Conceptual / detailed design Consultation Planning permission Collect raw data Construct modules/pipeline Choose parameters
CVE needs to support Design modification Consultation Design review Data exploration vs. presentation Modify parameters and/or representation
4
Interaction in CVEs
Urban planning
Data visualization
Views Modify Modify
Views Rendering attributes (e.g. lighting) Content (objects polygons)
Shared
Independent
5
Interaction in CVEs
Urban planning
Data visualization
Views Modify Modify
Views Rendering attributes (e.g. lighting) Content (objects polygons)
Shared Design review
Independent Consultation Design modification
6
Interaction in CVEs
Urban planning
Data visualization
Views Modify Modify
Views Rendering attributes (e.g. lighting) Content (objects polygons)
Shared Design review Data presentation
Independent Consultation Design modification Data exploration
7
CVE interaction research at Leeds

• Independent views
• Asynchronous collaboration
• Group dynamics
• Using urban planning/data visualization case
  studies

8
Asynchronous collaboration

• History mechanisms
• Trails (movement)
• Comments

9
Group dynamics

• Side channels of communication
• Tightly-coupled interaction body
  languageSynthetic faces (Hogg et al.)
• e.g., using Covisa-G (Brodlie et al.)

10
Conclusions

• Independent views
• Asynchronous collaboration
• Group dynamics
• Representation