Pro-MOTE: 3D whiteboard for scientific collaboration

In the era of internet, virtual collaboration for presentation, lectures or discussion, through Microsoft Meeting, VNC, or virtual whiteboard are common forms of communication in research and industry. Most of these present technologies focus on 2D virtual environment depicting a chalk-and-board classroom. However with the advent of 3-D visualization techniques, and gesture recognition methods, it‟s possible to create a 3D virtual environment, which can be used for more intuitive communication. This work proposes to create a 3D whiteboard, where several collaborators can draw and edit 3D objects using hand-gestures. In this paper, we discuss the system architecture for the development of this 3D whiteboard (Pro-MOTE), integrating Wiimote for motion capture, GlovePIE as a platform for algorithmic computation and interface builder, and Blender to render/recreate the 3D objects intended to be drawn. These virtually created 3D objects can then be viewed by special eyewear and used by any scientific community for discussion, debates, education and collaboration.