Project information

submitted by
Tim Weißker

Co-Authors
Ramsha Saad Thaniana, Margarita Osipova, Eric Schlossberg, Ankith Kodanda

Mentors
Prof. Dr. Bernd Fröhlich, Pauline Bimberg, Tim Weißker

Faculty:
Media

Degree programme:
Human-Computer Interaction (Master of Science (M.Sc.))

Type of project presentation
Research project

Semester
Winter semester 2020/21

Links
https://www.uni-weimar.de/en/med...

Project description

Many virtual reality interfaces in the past have primarily focused on providing immersive experiences for individual users. Recent developments, however, steer more and more towards collaborative virtual environments which allow both collocated and geographically distributed users to meet and interact with each other in a shared virtual space.

In this project, we started by exploring commercial Social VR systems as well as research papers on the subject to better understand the challenges for distributed user interaction. Afterwards, each of us focused on a particular sub-topic and developed novel solution approaches in an own distributed virtual environment built upon Unity and Photon:

* A toolset for giving presentations in social virtual environments
* Metaphors for managing transfers of the presenter role
* A toolset for simulating and evaluating eye contact when direct eye tracking is not available
* A short-term group navigation technique based on virtual hand holding

Two pilot studies conducted at the end of the project revealed promising initial results and motivate future research in each of the four areas.

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https://vimeo.com/569807292

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