Engineers have been using collaborating tools in virtual reality environments for almost 20 years. Now, South Korean and Japanese researchers have tried to compare different experiences of users working together using the Virtual Dollhouse application where two people working together have to build a virtual dollhouse using virtual building blocks, a hammer, and nails. Some of them were in 'traditional' collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) using haptic technologies. Others were working over the Internet as well as over a local area network. They've concluded that users could still work together effectively over a network. But read more...
You can see above a prototype of the Virtual Dollhouse application where each user only uses one hand (Credit: Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST)).
This application has been developed by Qonita Shahab, Yong-Moo Kwon, Heedong Ko and Maria Mayangsari, of the Imaging Media Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul, Korea. The other authors of the International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) are Shoko Yamasaki and Hiroaki Nishino, of the Department of Computer Science and Intelligent Systems at Oita University (Japanese page and English snippets.
Here is an excerpt from the SPIE article. "Several research studies have examined interaction techniques between users in CVEs, especially where they both handle the same object. We constructed the Virtual Dollhouse application to demonstrate what happens in concurrent object manipulation, where several people want to act on an object together: for example, lifting a block at the same time. In this application, two people have to collaborate in building a dollhouse. They are presented with several building blocks, a hammer, and several nails. Network support enables participants in different places to work jointly when interacting with the simulation, and see the results of each other's actions."
After testing the application in various virtual environments, here is the researchers' conclusion. "From our tests of the application over different networks and in varying environments, we conclude that haptics functionality via a force-feedback device is useful in helping participants to feel each other's presence. It also allows joint work to be performed more effectively (that is, with less time wasted). However, network delays caused difficulties with the smoothness of the haptics. In the future, we will study possible solutions to this problem and update our algorithm."
For more information, you can read a paper presented during the SPIE Optics 2006 conference, "Collaborative Virtual Experience Based on Reconfigurable Simulation" (PDF format, 10 pages, 1.75 MB), from which the above picture has been extracted.
Here is the abstract of this paper. "Virtual Reality simulation enables immersive 3D experience of a Virtual Environment. A simulation-based Virtual Environment can be used to map real world phenomena onto virtual experience. With a reconfigurable simulation, users can reconfigure the parameters of the involved objects, so that they can see different effects from the different configurations. This concept is suitable for a classroom learning of physics law. This research studies the Virtual Reality simulation of Newton’s physics law on rigid body type of objects. With network support, collaborative interaction is enabled so that people from different places can interact with the same set of objects in immersive Collaborative Virtual Environment. The taxonomy of the interaction in different levels of collaboration is described as: distinct objects and same object, in which there are same object – sequentially, same object – concurrently – same attribute, and same object – concurrently – distinct attributes. The case studies are the interaction of users in two cases: destroying and creating a set of arranged rigid bodies. In Virtual Domino, users can observe physics law while applying force to the domino blocks in order to destroy the arrangements. In Virtual Dollhouse, users can observe physics law while constructing a dollhouse using existing building blocks, under gravity effects.."
[Disclaimer: The screenshot above shows that the Virtual Dollhouse application is using OpenGL Performer from SGI. I have worked for SGI in the past but I have absolutely no ties with the company.]
Sources: International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE), November 28, 2007; and various websites
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