Global Tele-Immersion: Better Than Being There

The term Tele-Immersion was first used in October 1996 as the title of a workshop the Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL) at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) organized in Chicago to bring together researchers in distributed computing, collaboration, virtual reality (VR), and networking. Workshop attendees paid specific attention to the future needs of applications in the sciences, engineering, and education. EVL defines Tele-Immersion as the union of networked VR and video in the context of significant computing and data mining. Some researchers use the terms Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) or Distributed Virtual Environment (DVE) to describe the field of networked VR. Tele-Immersion, as defined by the authors, encompasses more image-based technology, like video and bit maps, than CVE/DVE researchers typically envision, so that more "reality" (so to speak) is incorporated. It also has the benefit of being pronounceable. Global Tele-Immersion is "better than being there" because physical travel, especially international travel, is best devoted to vacation, not work, in the authors' experienced opinion.