VFF: Collaborative 3D Interactions and Their Application on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality Interfaces

Spatial object manipulation is one of the most common tasks in 3D environments. The intangibility of the virtual requires the use of 3D user interfaces for robust interactions. One alternative towards efficient 3D manipulations is to share the work to solve the task collaboratively. A collaborative environment provides more than one individual perspectives of the scene, which may also include shared and personal viewpoints. However, teamwork involves considerable negotiations and, as team members vary, team strategies and task-fulfillment processes also change. Our goal is to investigate collaboration in group work, identify the aspects of effective cooperative interactions and design 3D user interactions that enhance the team capability to solve complex manipulation tasks in virtual environments.

First, we designed an interaction model to support simultaneous 3D manipulations in virtual and augmented reality scenarios and evaluated group performance and behavior in symmetric collaboration, where the team has the same interaction and visualization interface. After, we investigate asymmetric group interactions, integrating our symmetric collaborative solutions. This research contributes to the definition of a model for the design of collaborative 3D user interfaces flexible to work in multiple immersion scenarios. Furthermore, we present a series of studies that investigate the application of collaborative 3D interactions on Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality scenarios.