Designing viewpoint awareness for 3D collaborative virtual environment focused on real-time manipulation of multiple shared objects

Abstract

In some collaborative manipulation activities - for example, medical experts making a diagnosis based on a 3D reconstruction of a human organ remote participants may tailor their views on the shared object to their particular needs and task. This implies that each user has her viewpoint on the object. Awareness of viewpoint is then necessary both to coordinate each other and to understand remote users' activities. This work investigates how to provide the remote viewpoint awareness in a 3D collaborative desktop in which multiple shared objects can be independently positioned and manipulated to accomplish a common single activity. Preliminary results of ergonomie evaluations of the proposed metaphors are also provided. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.