Collaborative virtual environment

Abstract: This paper explores and evaluates the support for object-focused interaction provided by a desktop Collaborative Virtual Environment. An experimental “design” task was conducted, and video recordings of the participants' activities facilitated an observational analysis of interaction in, and through, the virtual world. Observations include: problems due to “fragmented” views of embodiments in relation to shared objects; participants compensating with spoken accounts of their actions; and difficulties in understanding others' perspectives. Implications and proposals for the design of CVEs drawn from these observations are: the use of semidistorted views to support peripheral awareness; more explicit or exaggerated representations of actions than are provided by pseudohumanoid avatars; and navigation techniques that are sensitive to the actions of others. The paper also presents some examples of the ways in which these proposals might be realized.

Abstract: Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) enable two or more people, separated in the real world, to share the same virtual “space” They can be used for many purposes, from teleconferencing to training people to perform assembly tasks Unfortunately, the effectiveness of CVEs is compromised by one major problem: the delay that exists in the networks linking users together Whilst we have a good understanding, especially in the visual modality, of how users are affected by delayed feedback from their own actions, little research has systematically examined how users are affected by delayed feedback from other people, particularly in environments that support haptic (force) feedback The current study addresses this issue by quantifying how increasing levels of latency affect visual and haptic feedback in a collaborative target acquisition task Our results demonstrate that haptic feedback in particular is very sensitive to low levels of delay Whilst latency affects visual feedback from 50 ms, it impacts on haptic task performance 25 ms earlier, and causes the haptic measures of performance deterioration to rise far more steeply than visual The “impact-perceive-adapt” model of user performance, which considers the interaction between performance measures, perception of latency, and the breakdown of perception of immediate causality, is proposed as an explanation for the observed pattern of performance

Abstract: A Collaborative Virtual Environment or CVE is a distributed, virtual reality that is designed to support collaborative activities. As such, CVEs provide a potentially infinite, graphically realised...

Abstract: A 3D virtually synchronous communication architecture for situated language learning has been designed to foster communicative competence among undergraduate students who have studied English as a foreign language (EFL). We present an innovative approach that offers better e-learning than the previous virtual reality educational applications. The proposed method supplies learners with autonomy in virtual communications, allowing learners to achieve a variety of shared goals. The traditional text-based or web-based virtual reality systems are generally less attractive to students because of their lack of 3D immersion and realtime voice interaction. Three-D virtual reality technology can be exploited to compensate these weaknesses. We propose an immersive and interactive virtual English classroom, entitled VEC3D, that integrates a goal-based instructional design, vivid 3D graphics, and real-time voice communication. The ultimate goal of the VEC3D project is to enhance learners’ English communicative competence. This research determines how learners perceive their experiences in the virtual space and use communication strategies (CSs) in the process of advancing communicative competence. The recent ethnographic study results revealed that the proposed application promoted positive student attitude and interactive learning experiences.