Constructing a Gazebo: Supporting Team Work in a Tightly Coupled, Distributed Task in Virtual Reality

Many tasks require teamwork. Team members may work concurrently but there must be some occasions of coming together. Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE) allow distributed teams to come together across distance to share a task. Studies of CVE system have tended to look at the sense of presence or co-presence with other people. They have avoided studying close interaction between users, such as the shared manipulation of objects, because CVEs suffer from inherent network delays and often have cumbersome user interfaces. Little is known about the effectiveness of collaboration in tasks requiring various forms of object sharing and, in particular, the concurrent manipulation of objects. This paper investigates the effectiveness of supporting teamwork between a geographically distributed group, in a task requiring the shared manipulation of objects. In order to complete the task, users must share objects through concurrent manipulation of both, the same, and distinct attributes. The effectiveness of teamwork is measured in terms of time taken to achieve each step, as well as the impression of users. The effect of interface is examined by comparing various combinations of walk-in cubic Immersive Projection Technology (IPT) displays and desktop devices.