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Shunting of trains is a task that requires meticulous adherence to all steps to guarantee safety for everyone involved during and after the procedure. These steps are currently taught using classical teaching materials, such as printouts, videos and training by experienced supervisors. However, due to limited availability of locomotives, hours for training and manpower, training of shunting operation becomes challenging in real life. In this paper, we implemented a lifelike, collaborative virtual environment for shunting training including a novel human factors evaluation system for fatigue and stress monitoring. An experiment with 12 subjects and 3 trainers has been designed and carried out to validate the usage of VR-based shunting training. Positive feedback toward the VR-based training was obtained from the subjects and trainers.

The ability to capture and explore complex real-world dynamic scenes is crucial for their detailed analysis. Tools which allow retrospective exploration of such scenes may support training of new employees or be used to evaluate industrial processes. In our work, we share insights and practical details for end-to-end acquisition of Free-Viewpoint Videos (FVV) in challenging environments and their potential for exploration in collaborative immersive virtual environments. Our lightweight capturing approach makes use of commodity DSLR cameras and focuses on improving both density and accuracy of Structure-from-Motion (SfM) reconstructions from small sets of images under difficult conditions. The integration of captured 3D models over time into a compact representation allows for efficient visualization of detailed FVVs in an immersive multi-user virtual reality system. We demonstrate our workflow on a representative acquisition of a suction excavation process and outline a use-case for exploration and interaction between collocated users and the FVV in a collaborative virtual environment.

Collaboration is essential in companies and often physical presence is required, thus, more and more Virtual Reality (VR) systems are used to work together remotely. To support social interaction, human representations in form of avatars are used in collaborative virtual environment (CVE) tools. However, up to now, the avatar representations often are limited in their design and functionality, which may hinder effective collaboration. In our interview study, we explored the status quo of VR collaboration in a large automotive company setting with a special focus on the role of avatars. We collected inter-view data from 21 participants, from which we identified challenges of current avatar representations used in our setting. Based on these findings, we discuss design suggestions for avatars in a company setting, which aim to improve social interaction. As opposed to state-of-the-art research, we found that users within the context of a large automotive company have an altered need with respect to avatar representations.

As virtual reality (VR) headsets become more commercially accessible, a range of social platforms have been developed that exploit the immersive nature of these systems. There is a growing interest in using these platforms in social and work contexts, but relatively little work into examining the usability choices that have been made. We developed a usability inspection method based on cognitive walkthrough that we call guided group walkthrough. Guided group walkthrough is applied to existing social VR platforms by having a guide walk the participants through a series of abstract social tasks that are common across the platforms. Using this method we compared six social VR platforms for the Oculus Quest. After constructing an appropriate task hierarchy and walkthrough question structure for social VR, we ran several groups of participants through the walkthrough process. We undercover usability challenges that are common across the platforms, identify specific design considerations and comment on the utility of the walkthrough method in this situation.

Motion capture is a well-established technology for capturing actors' movements and performances within the entertainment industry. Many actors, however, witness the poor acting conditions associated with such recordings. Instead of detailed sets, costumes and props, they are forced to play in empty spaces wearing tight suits. Often, their co-actors will be imaginary, replaced by placeholder props, or they would be out of scale with their virtual counterparts. These problems do not only affect acting, they also cause an abundance of laborious post-processing clean-up work. To solve these challenges, we propose using a combination of virtual reality and motion capture technology to bring differently proportioned virtual characters into a shared collaborative virtual environment. A within-subjects user study with trained actors showed that our proposed platform enhances their feelings of body ownership and immersion. This in turn changed actors' performances which narrowed the gap between virtual performances and final intended animations.

Augmented and virtual reality have the potential to improve various aspects of everyday life such as tourism. An elementary part of tourism is the organization and execution of guided city tours. In case of tours for virtual cities, such as in the case of no longer existing ancient settlements, a combination of augmented and virtual reality may render high benefit for collaboration between guide and visitors. Immersive technology has been shown suitable for collaborative systems by previous research, as they can provide a better experience than other technologies. However, recent literature analyses showed that there is a lack of research regarding the role of augmented reality supporting the active/leading user role in such scenarios. Usually, augmented reality is used for the users who are passively experiencing the virtual environment and not for the one controlling it. However, we think that augmented reality has a large potential to improve the workflow of such a primary user. To investigate this research question, we present a collaborative system in this work, which implements a virtual city tour. In this system, the guide is using augmented reality and the visitor is immersed in the virtual city using virtual reality glasses. To implement a valid research prototype, the system has been developed in close feedback with experts in the field of guided city tours.

Collaborative academia-industry development and evaluation of virtual reality (VR) systems is a mutually beneficial opportunity to investigate VR technology in a real context and conduct user studies with target users. However, such collaboration is rarely performed due to variations in project pace and work methods. In this article, we introduce the process of action research on joint design, development, and evaluation of a collaborative VR system to address industrial needs. The paper further presents employees’ subjective opinions and perceived value of industrial VR applica- tions and reflects on their involvement throughout the process. The article concludes with a process-oriented framework for remote academia-industry collaboration, supported with practical sugges- tions on how to support this collaboration. Our experiences reveal the methods and advantages of remote collaboration in all phases of the process and signify the efficiency of the remote framework for academia-industry collaboration, especially relevant in the light of the COVID-19 pandemia acceptedVersion

Refereed/Peer-reviewed Hyperscanning is an emerging method for measuring two or more brains simultaneously. This method allows researchers to simultaneously record neural activity from two or more people. While this method has been extensively implemented over the last five years in the real-world to study inter-brain synchrony, there is little work that has been undertaken in the use of hyperscanning in virtual environments. Preliminary research in the area demonstrates that inter-brain synchrony in virtual environments can be achieved in a manner similar to that seen in the real world. The study described in this paper proposes to further research in the area by studying how non-verbal communication cues in social interactions in virtual environments can affect inter-brain synchrony. In particular, we concentrate on the role eye gaze plays in inter-brain synchrony. The aim of this research is to explore how eye gaze affects inter-brain synchrony between users in a collaborative virtual environment.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, distributed and remote working became a necessity but in agile project management, social interactions like daily standup meetings in Scrum are vital for the project success. Mixed reality can provide a new way of combining remote collaboration with innovative 3D visualizations to analyze the project status. In this paper, we present a visual immersive analytics framework for project management (VIAProMa). It imports data from project management tools like the GitHub issue tracker for open-source projects. With these task data as the basis, it can generate three-dimensional visualizations, e.g. about the overall progress or the competences of individual developers. Developers, stakeholders and end users can meet in the collaborative virtual environment as avatars and establish a spatial structure with the task cards and visualizations. Therefore, VIAProMa with its adapted and customized mixed reality project management features supports both the shared meetings and the information flow in the project. The shared environment makes it a suitable tool for DevOpsUseXR, an extension to the DevOps workflow, where end users are able to participate in the development process in mixed reality. The resulting implementation is available as an open-source project with cross-platform capabilities targeting the Microsoft HoloLens, HTC VIVE and Android smartphones, as well as tablets. The framework is applied in university teaching classes to convey agile methodology in mixed reality programming practices.

We developed a collaborative virtual environment for architectural planning that facilitates groups of people to work together using three different interfaces. These interfaces enable users to interact with the scene with varying levels of immersion and different interaction modalities. We conducted a user study to gauge the general usability of the system and to understand how the different interfaces affect the group work. In this paper we present the architecture of the system along with its different interfaces. We also present the user study results and the insights we gained from the study.

Web-based collaborative virtual reality is emerging as platform-independent technology that permits developers to produce fully immersive and interactive virtual environments accessible through web-browsers. The use of collaborative virtual environments can be helpful in situations when therapists and patients are unable to meet personally. This work introduces an extension of the LIRKIS G-CVE system with web-based interfaces for remote management of the upper limb rehabilitation process. Concerning the quality and safety of web technologies., we consider distant virtual training to be efficient for ordinary people.

This paper presents an immersive virtual reality environment that can be used to develop collaborative educational applications. Multiple users can collaborate within the virtual shared space and communicate with each other through voice. To asses the feasibility of the collaborative environment a novel case-study concerned the education of a geography was developed and evaluated. The geovisualization experiment scenario explores the possibility of learning geography in a collaborative virtual environment. A user-study with 30 participants was performed. Participants evaluated and commented on the usability and interaction methods used within the virtual environment., 4 pages, 7 figures

Several research projects in spatial cognition have suggested Virtual Environments (VEs) as an effective way of facilitating mental map development of a physical space. In the study reported in this paper, we evaluated the effectiveness of multimodal real-time interaction in distilling understanding of the VE after completing gamified educational tasks. We also measure the impact of these design elements on the user’s experience of educational tasks. The VE used reassemble an art gallery (namely REVERIE VG), and it was built using REVERIE (Real and Virtual Engagement In Realistic Immersive Environment), a framework designed to enable multimodal communication on the Web. We compared the impact of REVERIE VG with an educational platform called Edu-Simulation for the same gamified educational tasks. We found that the multimodal VE had no impact on the ability of students to retain a mental model of the virtual space. However, we also found that students thought that it was easier to build a mental map of the virtual space in REVERIE VG. This means that using a multimodal Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) in a gamified educational experience does not benefit spatial performance, but also it does not cause distraction. The paper ends with future work and conclusions and suggestions for improving mental map construction and user experience in multimodal CVEs.

An increasingly congested and contested space environment, coupled with a rapid rate of growth in data from space systems, has challenged mission operations centers with the difficult task of accurately making sense of the space environment. While automated systems process and optimize massive amounts of data, operators also need the ability to intuitively understand how their systems are impacted from a changing landscape. The analysis and comparison of courses of action (COA) for space mission planning are historically performed with tools that do not convey a clear shared common operating picture (COP) of possible scenarios and their implications, thus not effectively communicating the intent and planning guidance to accomplish an assigned mission. Modeling and simulation efforts are accomplished using a particular set of tools and the results are then transcribed to presentation views with limited fidelity. A better shared understanding of the COP can be achieved by collaborating in the development and analysis of COAs and visualizing the impacts and risks associated with potential COAs. Emerging augmented reality (AR) technologies offer the ability for multiple people to simultaneously visualize and interact with virtual constructs and information in a collaborative virtual environment (CVE). To facilitate effective COA analysis and wargaming, operational decision makers and space situational awareness (SSA) analysts can benefit from having a capability that allows them to collaboratively build, visualize and interact with space mission resource models in AR.

We are facing increasingly pressure on reducing travel and working remotely. Tools that support effective remote communication and collaboration are much needed. Social Virtual Reality (VR) is an emerging medium, which invites multiple users to join a collaborative virtual environment (VE) and has the potential to support remote communication in a natural and immersive way. We successfully organized a CHI 2020 Social VR workshop virtually on Mozilla Hubs, which invited researchers and practitioners to have a fruitful discussion over user representations and ethics, evaluation methods, and interaction techniques for social VR as an emerging immersive remote communication tool. In this CHI 2021 virtual workshop, we would like to organize it again on Mozilla Hubs, continuing the discussion about proxemics, social cues and VE designs, which were identified as important aspects for social VR communication in our CHI 2020 workshop.

Virtual reality (VR) enables immersive applications that make rich content available independent of time and space. By replacing or supplementing physical face-to-face meetings, VR could also radically change how we socially interact with others. Despite this potential, the effect of transferring physical collaborative experience into a virtual one is unclear. Therefore, we investigated the experience differences between a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) and a physical environment. We used a museum visit as a task since it is a typical social experience and a promising use case for VR. 48 participants experienced the task in real and virtual environments, either alone or with a partner. Despite the potential of CVEs, we found that being in a virtual environment has adverse effects on the experience which is reinforced by being in the environment with another person. Based on quantitative and qualitative results, we provide recommendations for the design of future multi-user virtual environments.

Emergency response training is needed to remember and implement emergency operation plans (EOP) and procedures over long periods until an emergency occurs. There is also a need to develop an effective mechanism of teamwork under emergency conditions such as bomb blasts and active shooter events inside a building. One way to address these needs is to create a collaborative training module to study these emergencies and perform virtual evacuation drills. This paper presents a collaborative virtual reality (VR) environment for performing emergency response training for fire and smoke as well as for active shooter training scenarios. The collaborative environment is implemented in Unity 3D and is based on run, hide, and fight mode of emergency response. Our proposed collaborative virtual environment (CVE) is set up on the cloud and the participants can enter the VR environment as a policeman or as a civilian. We have used game creation as a metaphor for developing a CVE platform for conducting training exercises for different what-if scenarios in a safe and cost-effective manner. The novelty of our work lies in modeling behaviors of two kinds of agents in the environment: user-controlled agents and computer-controlled agents. The computer controlled agents are defined with preexisting rules of behaviors whereas the user controlled agents are autonomous agents that provide controls to the user to navigate in the CVE at their own pace. Our contribution lies in our approach to combine these two approaches of behavior to perform emergency response training for building evacuation.

Collaboration between a helper and a worker in a 3D collaborative virtual environment usually requires real-time information sharing, since the worker relies on the timely assistance from the helper. In contrast, collaboration between workers requires them to shift their attention between independent tasks and dependent tasks. In worker-worker collaborations, a real-time updating technique could create excess information, which may be a distraction. In this paper, we compare different information sharing techniques and determine an efficient technique for the collaboration between workers. In our user experiment, participants performed a floor plan design task in a designer and engineer pairing on a desktop VR environment. The results showed that the proposed information sharing technique, in which objects are updated based on local users' actions, is more suitable than real-time updates. In addition, we discuss design implications that can be applied to different collaborative scenarios.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized in part by core deficits in social interaction and communication. A collaborative virtual environment (CVE), which is a computer-based, distributed, virtual space for multiple users to interact with one another and/or with virtual items, has the potential to support flexible, safe, and peer-based social interactions. In this article, we presented the design of a CVE system, called CoMove, with the ultimate goals of measuring and potentially enhancing collaborative interactions and verbal communication of children with ASD when they play collaborative puzzle games with their typically developing (TD) peers in remote locations. CoMove has two distinguishing characteristics: (i) the ability to promote important collaborative behaviors (including information sharing, sequential interactions, and simultaneous interactions) and to provide real-time feedback based on users’ game performance; as well as (ii) an objective way to measure and index important aspects of collaboration and verbal-communication skills during system interaction. A feasibility study with 14 pairs—7 ASD/TD pairs and 7 TD/TD pairs—was conducted to initially test the feasibility of CoMove. The results of the study validated the system feasibility and suggested its potential to index important aspects of collaboration and verbal communication.

Many organizational analysis tasks are solved by collaborating teams. In technology-mediated collaborations, enabling relevant visual cues is a core issue with existing technology. We explore whether avatars can provide relevant cues in collaborative virtual environments. To do so, we develop a research prototype for a collaborative virtual environment that utilises avatars to improve workspace awareness in collaborative tasks. We test this solution through two studies, qualitative and quantitative, in which participants have to collaborate to jointly validate and correct a diagrammatic model of operational procedures.Our evaluations provide both positive and negative results about the proposed prototype. Collaboration patterns changed and became significantly easier, but, task performance was only slightly improved. Together, these findings inform both the ongoing development of collaborative 3D virtual environments and the role of technology-mediated collaboration for validating and fixing models of processes. We present design principles for 3D virtual environment collaboration technology for process diagram creation and validation.We present a proof-of-concept implementation of the technology.We present findings from two studies of collaborative validation of a process diagram, qualitative and quantitative.

This paper presents the system architecture of a collaborative virtual environment in which distributed multidisciplinary teams involved in space exploration activities come together and explore areas of scientific interest of a planet for future missions. The aim is to reduce the current challenges of distributed scientific and engineering meetings that prevent the exploitation of\ud their collaborative potential, as, at present, expertise, tools and datasets are fragmented. This paper investigates the functional characteristics of a software framework that addresses these challenges following the design science research methodology in the context of the space industry and research.\ud An implementation of the proposed architecture and a validation process with end users, based on the execution of different use cases, are described. These use cases cover relevant aspects of real science analysis and operation, including planetary data visualization, as the system aims at being used in future European missions. This validation suggests that the system has the \ud potential to enhance the way space scientists will conduct space science research in the future.

Recent advances in the field of Virtual Reality (VR) using Head Mounted Display (HMD) has presented a new medium for immersive experiences. Designing for this medium does have its challenges, and designers and developers must adopt new design processes and pipeline for creating and manipulating virtual spaces in VR. There have been several works of research within similar fields of 3D manipulation with an HMD, but recent technological strides demand new efforts to translate prior knowledge toward the development of new and innovative tools. In this paper, we propose the design and implementation of a web-based authoring tool that exploits VR technology in the creation of the virtual spaces using an immersive Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE). The purpose is a multi-user collaboration platform for the web browser adaptable to a wide variety of cases and purposes and which allows multiple and dissimilar stakeholders to create and manipulate virtual spaces in collaboration, either recreate real-world scenes or construct new digital environments using their imagination.

The number of social VR applications-or applications that support social interaction between users in virtual reality-has grown considerably in recent years. A consequence of this growth is that the state of social VR application design has become increasingly obfuscated, which complicates identification of design trends, best practices, and uncommon features that are perhaps worthy of wider adoption. To help address this problem, this paper presents a taxonomy of social VR application design choices as informed by 29 commercial and prototypical applications in the literature. Discussion of the taxonomy highlights novel features of research prototypes that could potentially enrich the social experience in commercially available applications. The paper concludes by considering how the taxonomy can guide future design of social VR applications, and next steps for refining the taxonomy.

Collaborative virtual environment groupware is—despite of notable research efforts over several years—still not common in users’ workplaces. Reasons are high costs of engaging in collaboration next to the loss of information and capabilities that people enjoy in co-located settings. Low-fidelity prototyping is a way for co-located teams to create joint understandings and to gather feedback in early design stages. When it comes to geographically dispersed teams, dedicated tools are required that help to fulfill tasks at hand, while enabling team members as much as possible to apply working modes known from co-located settings. We present a web browser-based collaborative virtual environment that supports the joint real time creation of three-dimensional low-fidelity prototypes. It is a cross-platform application that runs on a multitude of hardware devices. While focusing on usage with virtual reality hardware, users may also freely participate when there are only traditional input and output devices available. The system provides enhanced awareness through visual remote user embodiment combined with spatial audio communication.

With the availability of powerful and affordable Augmented Reality (AR) devices, scenarios have become popular in which people wearing AR devices are supported by remote experts. These experts often use 2D peripherals to access the video feed of the 3D head mounted device (HMD) and to augment it with verbal or digital information. This raises the question whether tools that work for these scenarios also work for remote consultations. We conducted a study to (re-)evaluate these tools in a furniture sales consultation context. We focused on the consultant side of these settings and explored how the use of different pointing methods and perspectives affect different situations during a consultation. For this, we developed and evaluated a prototype with ten furniture store workers. Initial results show that while most usability and task load scores were even, the participants reported clear favorites for certain settings. We use these results to derive design recommendations for similar future projects.

We present a novel collaborative virtual reality system that offers multiple immersive 3D views at large 3D scenes. The physical setup consists of two synchronized multi-user 3D displays: a tabletop and a large vertical projection screen. These displays afford different presentations of the shared 3D scene. The wall display lends itself to the egocentric exploration at 1:1 scale, while the tabletop affords an allocentric overview. Additionally, handheld 3D portals facilitate the personal exploration of the scene, the comparison of views, and the exchange with others. Our developments enable seamless 3D interaction across these independent 3D views. This requires the simultaneous representation of user input in the different viewing contexts. However, the resulting interactions cannot be executed independently. The application must coordinate the interactions and resolve potential ambiguities to provide plausible effects. We analyze and document the challenges of seamless 3D interaction across multiple independent viewing windows, propose a high-level software design to realize the necessary functionality, and apply the design to a set of interaction tools. Our setup was tested in a formal user study, which revealed general advantages of collaborative 3D data exploration with multiple views in terms of user preference, comfort, and task performance.

This paper reflects on a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in the context of architecture, urban planning and design. The paper aims to critically assess the ability of virtual environments to support experiential online learning. It contributes to the literature by providing the experimental results of implementing the TERF virtual world for undergraduate and graduate Built Environment courses. TERF virtual world provides videos and other communication tools to support collaboration among students. Feedback on the usage and functionality of this 3D virtual platform was collected from students through post evaluation surveys. This experiment provided opportunities to facilitate team communication and a route to more collaborative leaning. It is also discussed the strengths and limitations of the 3D collaborative virtual environment to support deeper learning environment.

paper we evaluate Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) in terms of network latency. Network Latency main requirements, given in the literature for CVEs, have been summarized. We also discuss effects of network latency on users" performance in the CVEs. Different factors can improve, by minimizing overall network latency, the performance of users in the CVEs. This review provides a comprehensive inside look to network latency in the CVEs and will help the researchers to adopt a network, with minimum latency, for their CVEs. The algorithms and ideas, suggested by the researchers, to be adopted by the CVEs to minimize network latency in virtual environment, are also discussed critically. Reducing network latency will ultimately improve the overall efficiency of CVEs.

Avatar facial expression and animation in 3D Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) systems are reconstructed through a complex manipulation of all details that compose it like muscles, bones and wrinkles in 3D space. The need for a fast and easy reconstruction approach has emerged out in the recent years due to its application in various domains; 3D disaster management and military training etc. These details simulation must be as realistic as possible to convey different emotions according to the constantly changing situations in CVE during the runtime. For example, in 3D disaster management, it is important to use dynamic avatar emotions; firefighters should be frightened when dealing with a fire disaster and smiling when treating injures and evacuating habitants. However, the solution of facial animation remains a challenge that restricts the rapid and ease development of facial animation systems. In this work, the author presents extensible game engine architecture to easily produce real-time facial animations using a script atomic action without having to deal with control structures and 3D programing language. The proposed architecture defines various controllers, object behaviors, tactical and graphics rendering, and collision effects to quickly design 3D virtual environment. Firstly, the author gives the concept of atomic expression, and the method to build a parametrized script file according to the atomic expression. Then the author shows the validity of the generated expressions based on the MPEG-4 facial animation framework. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed architecture is tested via a firefighter scenario. The author's approach has the advantages over previous techniques of fitting directly an easy and faster technology with a high degree of programming independence. The author also minimizes the interaction with the game engine during the runtime by injecting dynamically the XML file into the game engine without stopping or restarting the engine.

A high presence immersive traditional crafting system was developed to provide users, who interact with the system through head-mounted displays, with a highly realistic traditional crafting presentation experience that allows moving functions, such as free walk-through and teleportation. Users can also interactively operate traditional craft objects in space. In addition, the system supports collaborative work in a virtual space shared by remote users. To evaluate the effectiveness of this system, a questionnaire survey was administered to 124 subjects, who provided overwhelmingly positive responses regarding all functions. However, there is still room for improvement in the operability and relevancy of the system.

In this research, we aim to address the problem of combining the benefits of using eLearning environments and let students work together in groups in a collaborative virtual learning environments. In this paper, we explain the development of an establishment of a collaborative model for deaf people to support collaborative learning. The created model is an extension of traditional collaborative learning models in class rooms; it allows multiple deaf students to work together in a virtual environment to discuss the learning materials, solve problems, transfer knowledge, etc. We start by extending the collaborative learning model, by introducing explicit roles for each member in the group. The model provides a social space for deaf people to communicate using sign language. Moreover, it is implemented in a collaborative virtual environment that provides different types of features to support learning over distance. It allows deaf students to communicate and share knowledge easily. Bilingual chatting (text and sign language), video conference, and avatar feature are the main three features in the proposed model.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer-generated experience that can simulate physical presence in real or imagined environments [7]. A social VR system is an application that allows multiple users to join a collaborative Virtual Environment (VE), such as a computer-generated 3D scene or a 360-degree natural scene captured by an omnidirectional camera, and communicate with each other, usually by means of visual and audio cues. Each user is represented in the VE as a computer-generated avatar [3] or, in recently proposed systems, with a virtual representation based on live captures [1]. Depending on the system, the user’ virtual representation can also interact with the virtual environment, for example by manipulating virtual objects, controlling the appearance of the VE, or controlling the playout of additional media in the VE. The interest for social Virtual Reality (VR) systems dates back to the late 90s [4, 8] but has recently increased [2, 5, 6] due to the availability of affordable head-mounted displays on the consumer market and to the appearance of new applications, such as Facebook Spaces, YouTube VR, Hulu VR, which explicitly aim at including social features in existing VR platforms for multimedia delivery. In this talk, we will address the problem of measuring user Quality of Experience (QoE) in social VR systems. We will review the studies that have analysed how different features of a social VR system design, such as avatar appearance and behavioural realism, can affect user’s experience, and propose a comparison of the objective and subjective measures used in the literature to quantify user QoE in social VR. Finally, we will discuss the use case of watching movies together in VR and present the results of one of our recent studies focusing on this scenario, designed and performed in the framework of the European project VRTogether (http://vrtogether.eu). Particularly, we show an analysis of correlation between the objective and subjective measurements collected during our study, to provide guidelines toward the design of a unified methodology to monitor and quantify users’ QoE in social VR systems. The open questions to be addressed in the future in order to achieve such goal are also discussed.

Collaboration among research scientists across multiple types of visualizations and platforms is useful to enhance scientific workflow and lead to unique analysis and discovery. However, current analytic tools and visualization infrastructure lack sufficient capabilities to fully support collaboration across multiple types of visualizations, display/interactive systems, and geographically distributed researchers. We have combined, adapted, and enhanced several emerging immersive and visualization technologies into a novel collaboration system that will provide scientists with the ability to connect with other scientists to work together across multiple visualization platforms (i.e. stereoscopic versus monoscopic), multiple datasets (i.e. 3-Dimensional versus 2-Dimensional data), and multiple visualization techniques (i.e. volumetric rendering versus 2D plots). We have demonstrated several use cases of this system in materials science, manufacturing, planning, and others. In one such use case, our collaboration system imports material science data (i.e., graphite billet) and enable multiple scientists to analyze and explore the density change of graphite across immersive and non-immersive systems, which will help to understand the potential structural problem in it. We recruited scientists that work with the datasets we demonstrate in three use case scenarios and conducted an experimental user study to evaluate our novel collaboration system on scientific visualization workflow effectiveness. In this paper, we present the results on task completion time, task performance, user experience, and feedback among multiple and feedback among multiple geographically distributed collaborators using different multiple-platform for collaboration.

We describe the design, deployment and testing of a module to track and graphically represent user movement in a collaborative virtual environment. This module allows for the comparison of ground-truth user/observer ratings of the affective qualities of an interaction with automatically generated representations of the participants' movements in real time. In this example, we generate three charts visible both to participants and external researchers. Two display the sum of the tracked movements of each participant, and a third displays a “synchrony visualizer”, or a correlation coefficient based on the relationship between the two participants' movements. Users and observers thus see a visual representation of “nonverbal synchrony” as it evolves over the course of the interaction. We discuss this module in the context of other applications beyond synchrony.

Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often exhibit impairments in communication and social interaction, and thus face various social challenges in collaborative activities. Given the cost of ASD intervention and lack of access to trained clinicians, technology-assisted ASD intervention has gained momentum in recent years. In this paper, we present a novel collaborative virtual environment (CVE)-based social interaction platform for ASD intervention. The development of CVE technology for ASD intervention may lead to the creation of a novel low-cost intervention environment that will foster collaboration with peers and provide flexibility in communication. The presented Communication-Enhancement CVE system, hand-in-hand, allows two children to play a series of interactive games in a virtual reality environment by using simple hand gestures to collaboratively move virtual objects that are tracked in real time via cameras. Furthermore, these games are designed to promote natural communication and cooperation between the users via the presented Communication-Enhancement mode that allows users to share information and discuss game strategies using gaze and voice-based communication. The results of a feasibility study with 12 children with ASD and 12 typically developing peers show that this system was well accepted by both the children with and without ASD, improved their cooperation in game play, and demonstrated the potential for fostering their communication and collaboration skills.

International audience; In recent years, there has been an increasing interest for collaborative training in risk management. One of the critical point is to create educational and entirely controlled training environments that support industrial companies (in aviation, healthcare, nuclear…) or hospitals to train (future or not) professionals. The aim is to improve their teamwork performance making them understand the importance applying or adjusting safety recommendations. In this article, we present a method to design multi-player educational scenario for risk management in a socio-technical and dynamic context. The socio-technical situations focused in this article involve non-technical skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, decision-making and situation awareness. The method presented here has been used to design as well regular situations as well as critical situations in which deficiencies already exist or mistakes can be freely made and fixed by the team in a controlled digital environment.

This technical paper describes a software framework that has been conceived in order to develop collaborative, immersive Virtual Reality applications with the distinctive ability to be fed by real-time full-body tracking data of the multiple collaborating participants. This feature has a key role both to improve the mutual awareness in the visually immersive CVE, and to exploit complete body poses for human-centered joint activities and related assessments. By following recent trends of VR research application development, the framework has been based on a popular game engine (Unreal Engine 4) and leverages its powerful built-in facilities for networked, multiplayer applications and for character skinning. The paper illustrates the implemented techniques for real-time size-independent mannequin animation that could be usefully applied for the same task to different game engines or VR development environments, and also describes the data management strategies devised for an efficient implementation of a CVE architecture dealing with full-body tracking data flows.

Virtual Reality enables a new form of collaboration. It allows users to work together in the same virtual room regardless of their actual physical location. However, it is unclear which effect the physical location of the user has on task performance, the feeling of presence or immersion. We compared the collaboration of two users in the same local room and in remote rooms on the basis of a knowledge-transfer task. An instructor indicated different virtual objects using three different pointing gestures and a trainee selected the highlighted object. The results of a 28 participant user study show that the performance of the gestures in the local and remote setup is equal, according to NASA-TLX, rankings and time. Users feel equally co-present and tend to prefer the remote collaboration. The data presented in this paper shows that VR collaboration in a virtual room is independent from the physical location of the participants. This allows the development of VR applications without special consideration of the user’s location. VR systems can use the advantages of a remote collaboration, like faster reaction times, no travel expenses and no user collision, or of local collaboration, e.g. direct contact between users.

There still lacks a collaborative framework that integrates existing and new virtual reality systems supporting remote collaboration for data visualization. The collaborative framework currently available might limit the collaborators for collaboration because it is not developed to support interaction with diverse 3D applications while using heterogeneous virtual reality (VR) systems remotely in a synchronized way. We will present our collaborative framework that supports remote collaboration across heterogeneous VR systems to interact with multiple 3D applications. This system is independent of any VR systems and can be used to interact collaboratively in real-time on a shared task. Additionally, we conducted a pilot study to gain perspective on the usability of the system for collaborative work across heterogeneous VR systems. We will present the results on the usability of the system, and the results obtained from the users are motivating and encouraging. Our system has the potential to increase task effectiveness and workflow because it enables shared and real-time interaction while remotely collaborating with diverse 3D applications across heterogeneous VR systems.

Like other communication media, a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) enables interaction under certain characteristics. Here, the main display of nonverbal cues is through a graphical representation of the user in a computer-created environment; in such a way that nonverbal behavior in CVEs varies, not only because of the people and the scenario involved as in a face-to-face situation, but also because of technical and design issues. In order to present an overview of the nonverbal interaction conditions in this technology, the study of nonverbal interaction in face-to-face situations is here contextualized in CVEs.

In a co-located collaborative virtual environment, multiple users share the same physical tracked space and the same virtual workspace. When the virtual workspace is larger than the real workspace, navigation interaction techniques must be deployed to let the users explore the entire virtual environment. When a user navigates in the virtual space while remaining static in the real space, his/her position in the physical workspace and in the virtual workspace are no longer the same. Thus, in the context where each user is immersed in the virtual environment with a Head-Mounted-Display, a user can still perceive where his/her collaborators are in the virtual environment but not where they are in real world. In this paper, we propose and compare three methods to warn users about the position of collaborators in the shared physical workspace to ensure a proper cohabitation and safety of the collaborators. The frst one is based on a virtual grid shaped as a cylinder, the second one is based on a ghost representation of the user and the last one displays the physical safe-navigation space on the foor of the virtual environment. We conducted a user-study with two users wearing a Head-Mounted-Display in the context of a collaborative First-Person-Shooter game. Our three methods were compared with a condition where the physical tracked space was separated into two zones, one per user, to evaluate the impact of each condition on safety, displacement freedom and global satisfaction of users. Results suggest that the ghost avatar and the cylinder grid can be good alternatives to the separation of the tracked space.

This research present a case-study based from the student projects working to create 3d environment by using an online collaborative virtual environment platform to enhance their collaborative learning experience. For this project, Minecraft was chosen as main platform to complete this task. This projects main intention was to adapt the seven principles of facilitating student engagement by using the virtual reality medium as technology. Students were also to explore and identify the important characteristic of collaborative virtual environment and implement the same concept in their collaborative virtual environment projects. The reviews highlighted by the students were also discussed to derive an insight of the specific elements that can enhance student's engagement and learning experience for collaborative virtual environment. Furthermore, this paper will describe the way requirements were gathered from student's project and the impact to their learning experience.

The use of collaborative virtual environments facilitates communication, coordination and cooperation within a group of people. In the field of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), collaborative virtual environments have been developed to support the learning of programming. With the aim of fostering software testing education by alternative means, we present findings from the use of a collaborative virtual environment used for software testing training. Particularly, we report an empirical study (controlled experiment) which assesses the effectiveness of detecting defects in instrumented programs with and without the support of an collaborative virtual environment (CVE). The CVE was used as part of a programming course at under-graduate level. The results suggest an equivalent effectiveness in defect detection for both types of participants, those who used the CVE and those who worked in a traditional manner. It was observed that with regard to effectiveness, for this type of task (the detection of defects), working virtually through a CVE versus working in a tradition manner (at the same time and in the same place) yields equivalent results. When collaborative work cannot be done in a traditional way, the use a CVE is an alternative approach equally effective for collaborating and learning on software testing.

International audience; In recent years, there has been an increasing interest for collaborative training in risk management. One of the critical point is to create educational and entirely controlled training environments that support industrial companies (in aviation, healthcare, nuclear...) or hospitals to train (future or not) professionals. The aim is to improve their teamwork performance making them understand the importance applying or adjusting safety recommendations. In this article, we present a method to design multi-player educational scenario for risk management in a socio-technical and dynamic context. The socio-technical situations focused in this article involve non-technical skills such as teamwork, communication, leadership, decision-making and situation awareness. The method presented here has been used to design as well regular situations as well as critical situations in which deficiencies already exist or mistakes can be freely made and fixed by the team in a controlled digital environment.

This paper describes the devising of a real-time full-body motion-capture system for multi-user Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE). The idea takes advantage of some Natural User Interface devices such as the Microsoft Kinect and the Leap Motion Controller. The aim of our approach is to allow a rapid and easy access of participants to the tracked area, that is why the described system has been devised to be both wireless and markerless.

This work proposes and evaluates the EGO-EXO technique for cooperative manipulation in a Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE). From the premise that simultaneous control over navigation and manipulation by the user can make interaction complex, this technique places two users in asymmetric viewpoint positions during the cooperative manipulation of an object, allowing one of them to follow the object. It applies the separation of degrees of freedom method between the two viewpoints to make the manipulation easier. The technique is evaluated through a user study to test its efficiency on handling cooperative manipulation. Results indicate that, for manipulation tasks that require high amplitude position control along precise orientation control, the technique performs with a lower collisions to time ratio.

International audience; Risk-management training in the operating room (OR) can be achieved by involving learners in a simulated risky situation. The task is particularly complex because most of the time, the causes of an accident or an adverse event imply a large variety of contributing factors that are (i) difficult to combine artificially and (ii) even harder to detect and evaluate in a dynamic training context. This paper describes a model for specifying pedagogical objectives that has been integrated and used in a 3D virtual operating room project designed to train medical staff on risk management, particularly risks linked to communication default. Training sessions organized with trainers, student-anesthetist-nurses, student-operating-nurse and student-anesthetists show how teamwork efficiency in critical situations may be evaluated in a collaborative environment.