Co-located
Collaborative Use of Virtual Environments
Holtkämper, Thorsten1, Sascha
Scholz1, Armin Dressler1, Manfred A. Bogen1
(1) Fraunhofer IAIS,
Reservoir characterization and modeling
is a multi-disciplinary task with many experts from different fields involved.
Virtual Environments (VEs) can support such kind of collaborative tasks. This
presentation is about the research done in the VRGeo Consortium to inspire and
improve the collaborative use of VEs.
Central to VEs for co-located
collaboration are display systems that can be used by multiple users. However
it is not only about the bare hardware, but it is also about the combination
with special rendering techniques and interaction concepts that makes a system
a real collaboration environment. Since 2001, we have developed two different
projection-based systems especially with co-located collaboration in mind. One
system is a wide panoramic display called i-Cone® with enhanced multi-user
properties such as omni-directional stereo and multi-viewpoint images. The
other system is a multi-viewer display called TwoView which projects an
individual stereoscopic image for each of two users, enabling the sharing of
the physical as well as the virtual space for precise collaborative work. We
also did research in coupling on-site nearby displays running one application
spanned over two VEs.
In general VEs are not only viewers for
an application but also include means for system control. We introduced a
PDA-based, hybrid interaction and input/output device, which is especially
useful in a multi-user context for instructor/learner sessions and for the
differentiation between private and public data. We also designed a wireless
stylus which is both, an interaction device and a pen for shared tablet PCs.
For multi-user interactions we developed the bent pick ray technique, which
deals with the merging of multiple inputs and giving visual feedback on this
process.
Our presentation is about these
collaboration techniques and the experiences made in the VRGeo Consortium.
AAPG Search and Discover Article #90063©2007 AAPG Annual Convention, Long Beach, California