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Collaborative Virtual Environments

This page reports on work carried out from 2000 - 2005.

The primary research vehicle has been the CSIRO Collaborative Haptic Workbench, which consists of software libraries to network two Haptic Workbenches (described below) so that the people using each of the Haptic Workbenches share the same virtual workspace with the full range of visual, auditory and haptic interactions.  The Haptic Workbench is a hands-in virtual environment that fits on a desk, and the collaborative extension allows two people to work together on a complex 3D problem as if they were in the same place.  Face-to-face video and audio channels provide the inter-personal links and the haptic styluses (using Phantom haptic devices) give each user full 3D spatial and haptic interaction with the data and models in the virtual scene as well as physically interacting with each other.

The team’s first Collaborative Haptic Workbench was demonstrated in the laboratory in September 2000 using a virtual clay modelling and annotating case study.  It was first shown publicly in July 2001 at the ISO MPEG4 Standards Meeting in Sydney, Australia.  In November 2002 it was demonstrated running a surgical training scenario between Canberra, Australia and Stockholm, Sweden, and publicly between Australia and Montreal, Canada at the 8th Annual CANARIE Advanced Networks Workshop.

The current Collaborative Haptic Workbench software framework supports a rich set of communications media between the two people using it. Features include:

  • Both participants can simultaneously interact directly with the models in the virtual scene, and can observe what each other is doing. If the behaviour programmed into the model supports it they can even feel the haptic effect of each other’s movements. For example, they could each grasp either side of an object and feel the other pulling on it.
  • Both participants can annotate the model using 3D drawing tools (and erasers).
  • Real-world images and videos can be viewed and annotated within the virtual space
  • High-quality audio and video links are available between the two workbenches, using broadband research technology developed under the CeNTIE* program by a sister research team.
  • Haptic and non-haptic spatial gestures are supported between participants.

Technology supporting this interaction at the network level includes approaches to scene synchronisation and the ability to handle latency and jitter over the network and has been presented at ACM CVE in Bonn (September 2002), ACM SIGGRAPH (Gunn et al, July 2003) and MMVR (Gunn et al, January 2004) to appear in the June 2005 issue of Presence.

*The CeNTIE project is supported by the Australian Government through the Advanced Networks Program of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts and CSIRO ICT Centre.