Natural object focussed collaboration in distributed virtual environments

In an increasingly global economy there is rising pressure to expand collaboration from co-located to geographically distributed groups. Currently natural human interaction is not well supported between people collaborating across a distance. This negatively impacts on the feeling and performance of collaboration. Cooperative working could be better supported by richer mediums with more natural interfaces that allow people to interact with shared objects and each other as if they were co-located. For example, intention and opinion must be communicated, while synchronously manipulating shared artefacts. Transferring the straightforwardness of such collaboration onto distributed teams is challenging. Various forms of teleconferencing systems attempt to offer such support, yet they have difficulties with sharing objects and the direct social response this involves when participants interact with those objects. This work demonstrates that a collaborative virtual environment (CVE) can assist such cooperation and that immersive displays are of greater help compared with the traditional desktop interfaces to bring us closer to replicating a face-to-face interaction. The effectiveness of application of this technology depends on a complex set of factors that determine the efficiency of collaboration. This work examines these factors and their interrelationships within the framework of a taxonomy focussed on supporting closely-coupled collaboration using immersive CVEs.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo