FreeWalk: A 3D Virtual Space for Casual Meetings

M ost computer systems for collab-orative work provide desktop videoconferencing tools for business meetings. However, meetings aren't always formal or business related. Casual meetings such as chatting during a coffee break or in a hallway occur daily. They also play an important role in collaboration. We believe that conventional desktop videoconferencing systems , which multicast pictures and voices, can't support casual meetings. We aim to support everyday activities by forming a community through computer networks. Our product FreeWalk, 1 a social environment for communication, lets people meet casually in common three-dimensional (3D) virtual spaces such as a park or a lobby. The following list describes the inherent features of casual meetings and how FreeWalk can support them. 1. Casual meetings. In conventional desktop videoconferencing systems such as Office Mermaid, 2 participants turn on the system when they start a meeting. When in operation, the system displays the faces of all participants on their workstations, which hinders free conversation. The system lists the participants before the meeting starts, thereby prohibiting accidental encounters with other participants. Several desktop videoconferencing systems have tried to extend their functions to support casual meetings. Cruiser 3 randomly selects some of the participants and displays their faces to other participants to simulate accidental encounters. In contrast, FreeWalk's approach provides a common virtual space for casual meetings wherein participants can move and meet by themselves. It doesn't promote any system-directed encounters. The par-ticipants' faces display on screen only when the bodies of their avatars meet. 2. Meetings with many people. In meetings such as parties, several tens of participants simultaneously exist in the same space. In such cases, it's almost impossible to use desktop videoconfer-encing systems, since they try to display the faces of all participants at once. Plus, even if it were possible, it would be very hard for users to comprehend the situation. In FreeWalk, participants can freely change their locations and view directions. For example , they can wander around before they talk to someone else. They can also watch other participants. Many systems realize a 3D shared virtual space. The Distibuted Interactive Virtual Environment (DIVE), 4 a multiuser platform, lets people create, modify, and remove objects dynamically. This system has a script language to define autonomic behaviors of objects. Another multiuser virtual environment, Diamond Park, 5 has a park, a village, and an open-air cafe. In addition, Community Place 6 integrates Virtual Reality Modeling …