Collaborative Virtual Environments: Digital Places and Spaces for Interaction

by Elizabeth F. Churchill, David N. Snowdon, Alan J. Munro

Overview

Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) are online digital places and spaces where we can be in touch, play together and work together, even when we are, geographically speaking, worlds apart. We can hang out, present alternative selves, interact with realistic and fantastic objects and carry out impossible manoeuvres. In CVEs we can share the experience of worlds beyond the physical. This book offers an introduction to up-to-date research in the area of CVE design and development. A reader might feel that, collectively, the chapters in this book beg the questions "What is a CVE?". And, for that matter, "What isn't a CVE?". These are good questions, which invoke many different responses. What is certain is that CVEs are the perfect arena for gaining insights into human-human communication and collaboration, collaborative interaction with (virtual and real) objects, the effect of (potentially differing) embodiments, and the nature of place and space. Central to our work and to the work of the authors in this volume is the belief that putting people "into the loop" - explicitly considering human-human and human-environment interaction in the design and development process - is central to the design of any technology, and especially to the design of CVEs. In the case of CVEs this means actually putting people into the worlds, and many of our authors talk explicitly about their experiences and the experiences of study partici- pants in virtual environments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781852332440
Publisher:	Springer London
Publication date:	04/20/2001
Series:	Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Edition description:	1st Edition.
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

1 Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs): Histories, Perspectives and Issues.- 1 Collaborative Virtual Environments: Digital Spaces and Places for CSCW: An Introduction.- 1.1 Introduction.- 1.2 Collaborative Virtual Environments: Some Considerations.- 1.3 Themes Covered in the Book.- 1.4 Summary.- 2 Technical Issues and System Challenges.- 2 Extending the Limits of Collaborative Virtual Environments.- 2.1 Introduction.- 2.2 Support for Awareness of Other People.- 2.3 Support for Multiple Media.- 2.4 Support for Scalability.- 2.5 Summary and Conclusion.- 3 System Challenges for Collaborative Virtual Environments.- 3.1 Introduction.- 3.2 Collaborative Virtual Environments.- 3.3 Structures for Modelling VEs.- 3.4 Conclusion.- 4 Understanding the Network Requirements of Collaborative Virtual Environments.- 4.1 Introduction.- 4.2 User Behaviour.- 4.3 Process Behaviour.- 4.4 Distribution Architecture.- 4.5 Communication Prool.- 4.6 Network Topology.- 4.7 Conclusions.- 3 Bodies, Presences and Interactions.- 5 “He’s Behind You”: The Experience of Presence in Shared Virtual Environments.- 5.1 Introduction.- 5.2 The Ethnographic Study.- 5.3 Presence in Electronic Environments.- 5.4 Supporting Presence through Inter subjectivity and Learnability.- 5.5 Developing Engagement Properties.- 5.6 Summary and Conclusions.- 6 All That Is Solid Melts Into Software.- 6.1 Collaborative Virtual Environments Using Symbolic Acting.- 6.2 Symbolic Acting in Action.- 6.3 Results and Re-Design.- 6.4 Conclusions and Future Work.- 7 Virtually Missing the Point: Configuring CVEs for Object-Focused Interaction.- 7.1 Introduction.- 7.2 Objects, Interaction and VR.- 7.3 Approach.- 7.4 Furniture World: An Initial Investigation.- 7.5 Duplication World: Extending Actions and Views.- 7.6 Discussion.- 4 Sharing Context in CVEs - Or “I Know What I See, But What Do You See?”.- 8 How Not To Be Objective.- 8.1 Introduction.- 8.2 Populated Information Terrains.- 8.3 Subjectivity.- 8.4 Creating a Subjective Environment.- 8.5 A Subjective Application.- 8.6 Discussion.- 8.7 Summary.- 9 Supporting Flexible Roles in a Shared Space.- 9.1 Introduction.- 9.2 Kansas.- 9.3 Two Examples.- 9.4 Awareness and WYSIWITYS.- 9.5 Capabilities in the User Interface.- 9.6 User Interfaces to Dynamic Capability Acquisition.- 9.7 Conclusions.- 5 So, Now We’re In A CVE, What Do We Do?.- 10 Designing Interactive Collaborative Environments.- 10.1 Introduction.- 10.2 Electronic Landscapes - The Web Planetarium.- 10.3 A 3D Collaborative Storytelling Tool: From Blob to Klump.- 10.4 Supervisory Robot Control and Mixed Reality.- 10.5 Potential Techniques for Spatial Interaction in Multi-User Surround Display Environments.- 10.6 Summary and Conclusions.- 11 Designing to Support Collaborative Scientific Research Across Distances: The nanoManipulator Environment.- 11.1 Introduction.- 11.2 The Scientific Research Context.- 11.3 Design to Support Collaborative Cognitive Work Across Distances.- 11.4 Design Verification and Refinement: Guidance from Social Awareness Literature.- 11.5 Evaluation.- 11.6 Conclusion.- 12 Tele-Immersive Collaboration in the CAVE Research Network.- 12.1 Introduction.- 12.2 Tele-Immersion.- 12.3 Current Applications.- 12.4 Lessons Learned.- 12.5 New Challenges.- 12.6 Summary.- 6 The Emerging and Existing Cultures of CVE Communities.- 13 Designing an Emergent Culture of Negotiation in Collaborative Virtual Communities: The DomeCityMOO Simulation.- 13.1 Introduction.- 13.2 Communication in Virtual Spaces.- 13.3 Culture and Collaborative Virtual Community Design.- 13.4 The DomeCityMOO.- 13.5 Power Negotiation and Collaboration in DomeCityMOO.- 13.6 Conclusions.- 13.7 Lessons Learned for CVE Designers About Emergent Culture and Negotiation.- 13.8 Next Steps for Culture and Collaborative Virtual Community Design.- 14 Waterfall Glen: Social Virtual Reality at Work.- 14.1 Introduction.- 14.2 The Waterfall Glen Project.- 14.3 Observations.- 14.4 Summary.- 15 The Role of the Personal in Social Workspaces: Reflections on Working in AlphaWorld.- 15.1 Introduction.- 15.2 The AlphaWorld Virtual Office.- 15.3 Beyond Encounters.- 15.4 Conclusions.- References.