Collaborative approach for dynamic adjustment of selection areas in polygonal modelling

International audienceMutual awareness between users working in collaborative virtual environments is an important factor for efficient collaboration. Several studies have reported that haptic feedback improves performance in collaborative tasks. However, few researches have tried to evaluate the influence of haptic feedback on mutual awareness, and to link the corresponding measures with the performance and efficiency factors. This article presents a haptic collaborative modelling method dedicated to the dynamic adjustment of selection area. This modelling method intends to improve mutual awareness between the partners in order to improve the collaboration efficiency

Collaborative approach for dynamic adjustment of selection areas in polygonal modelling

International audienceCollaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) introduce new workingmethods, allowing multiple users to work simultaneously in thesame virtual space from different spatial locations. However, CVEsare not able to reflect the richness of real world communication. Indeed,these environments limit the shared situation awareness (SSAthat is the degree of similarity between each member’s perceptionof a same given situation), may lead to a reduction in performanceand efficiency of the group.Nova et al. [Nova et al. 2006] showed that using awareness toolsimproves performance in collaborative task. In fact, these tools providerelevant information about the position of a partner in the virtualenvironment. On the other hand, Endsley and Garland [Endsleyand Garland 2000] pointed out the fact that providing more data isdifferent from providing more information. Note that defining if agiven information represents a useful data is not straightforward asit depends on the situation.This difficulty leads us to propose an alternative approach to improveSSA and thus to improve working efficiency. Instead of providingmore information about users, we developed an interactionmethod which depends on the partner’s actions. In the context of acollaborative polygonal modelling, this research proposes a closelycoupled method to adjust the selection area and forces each partnerto be aware of the action and the location of the partner

Collaborative approach for dynamic adjustment of selection areas in polygonal modelling

International audienceCollaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) introduce new workingmethods, allowing multiple users to work simultaneously in thesame virtual space from different spatial locations. However, CVEsare not able to reflect the richness of real world communication. Indeed,these environments limit the shared situation awareness (SSAthat is the degree of similarity between each members perceptionof a same given situation), may lead to a reduction in performanceand efficiency of the group.Nova et al. [Nova et al. 2006] showed that using awareness toolsimproves performance in collaborative task. In fact, these tools providerelevant information about the position of a partner in the virtualenvironment. On the other hand, Endsley and Garland [Endsleyand Garland 2000] pointed out the fact that providing more data isdifferent from providing more information. Note that defining if agiven information represents a useful data is not straightforward asit depends on the situation.This difficulty leads us to propose an alternative approach to improveSSA and thus to improve working efficiency. Instead of providingmore information about users, we developed an interactionmethod which depends on the partners actions. In the context of acollaborative polygonal modelling, this research proposes a closelycoupled method to adjust the selection area and forces each partnerto be aware of the action and the location of the partner

Interactions visio-haptiques pour la coordination et la conscience situationnelle partagée en environnement virtuel collaboratif

La communication haptique interpersonnelle est communément utilisée pour se saluer, se féliciter, ou de manière indirecte pour manipuler des objets lourds. Pourtant, la modalité haptique est absente des systèmes de communication à distance usuels. Les progrès récents de l'informatique et des réseaux de communication ont permis l'émergence d'environnements virtuels collaboratifs offrant un retour haptique aux utilisateurs. Les environnements virtuels collaboratifs constituent une solution prometteuse pour faciliter le travail collaboratif à distance. Les contextes applicatifs sont nombreux : entrainement militaire, assemblage mécanique, manipulation moléculaire, conception assistée par ordinateur.Toutefois, les utilisateurs d'environnements virtuels collaboratifs sont confrontés à deux types de problématiques : celles liées aux environnements virtuels 3D et celles liées à la collaboration à distance. En effet, il est difficile pour un utilisateur peu expérimenté d'interagir avec un environnement virtuel 3D. Se déplacer et manipuler des objets dans ce type d'environnement nécessite une bonne représentation mentale de l'espace.De plus, la collaboration à distance limite les possibilités et la qualité de la communication. Les informations dont disposent les utilisateurs sur leurs partenaires sont donc réduites. Dans ce contexte, la coordination des actions entre les utilisateurs devient plus complexe.L'objectif de ces travaux de thèse est donc de proposer des méthodes d'interaction visio-haptique pour faciliter la coordination et augmenter l'attention mutuelle entre les utilisateurs. Via l'amélioration de la coordination et de l'attention inter-utilisateurs, une augmentation des performances et de l'efficacité du travail collaboratif est escomptée.Trois types d'interactions fondamentales sont abordées dans un contexte collaboratif : la coordination des sélections, le paramétrage des sélections et la manipulation collaborative d'objet. Pour chacune des tâches d'interactions précédemment citées, des méthodes d'interaction ainsi que des outils de coordination et de communication ont été proposé et évalué.Ces travaux de thèse présentent les points forts mais aussi les défauts des méthodes d'interaction collaboratives fortement couplées. Les résultats obtenus montrent également l'importance de la communication haptique dans la collaboration à distance.Haptic interpersonal communication is commonly used to salute, to congratulate, or indirectly to manipulate heavy objects. However, the haptic feedback is missing from the common communication systems. Recent developments in telecommunications and computer capabilities have made possible the use of haptic feedback in collaborative virtual environments. Collaborative virtual environments are a promising solution to facilitate remote work collaboration. They have many applications like: military training, engineering design, e-learning or video games.Nevertheless, users of collaborative virtual environments have to face several issues. First, interacting with a virtual environment is not a straightforward task. Navigate and manipulate objects in a virtual environment requires a good mental representation of space. Secondly, remote collaboration limits the communication quality because even the best video conference system can't support all the richness of a face to face communication. Information available on the partners are reduced thus coordinate actions between users become a complex task.The aim of this thesis is to propose visual haptic interactions to simplify coordination and increase mutual awareness between the users. Through the improvement of coordination and mutual awareness an increase of team performance and work efficiency is expected.Three kind of fundamental 3D interactions are addressed in collaborative context: the coordination of selections, the setting of selections and the manipulation of objects. For each of these three of fundamental interactions, several methods of interaction and tools of coordination are proposed and assessed.The findings of this thesis highlight the strengths and the weaknesses of the closely coupled method of interactions. The results of the experiments also confirm the importance of haptic communication in remote collaboration.PARIS11-SCD-Bib. électronique (914719901) / SudocSudocFranceF