Supporting Cooperative Work in Virtual Environments

This paper explores the use of multi-actor virtual reality systems to support communication and cooperation between groups of people. In particular, it introduces a spatial model of interaction which aims to support people in using their natural social communication skills when working together. First, we briefly review some of the social science background which has informed the development of this model. Next, we define the model's main concepts, i.e. aura, awareness, focus, nimbus, adapters and boundaries. We also explore the issues of user embodiment and spatial structure, the latter leading to the concept of Populaled Information Terrains. We then show how a few simplifying assumptions results in the notion of awareness states and discuss how these link to the results of previous studies of cooperative work. Following this, we present some early prototypes which realise our concepts within the DIVE distributed virtual reality system. In the first of these, a simple discrete version of the spatial model has been constructed based on the notion of awareness states. The second, Q-PIT, demonstrates an early Populated Information Terrain. Finally, we briefly reflect on the relationship between this work and other CSCW systems based on the metaphor of shared space