Stereoscopic telepointing in videocommunications

Stereoscopic telepointing to be employed inter alia in cooperative telework applications yields many benefits but also poses a number of problems addressed in a study with 96 subjects under four different conditions. For two conditions, 3D-input devices were designed implementing different input metaphors. The 'Light Beam Metaphor' is analogous to pointing to objects with a slide show pointer or laser pointer. The 'Reference Space Metaphor' provides the users with the possibility of pointing to details of an object in such a way as if a re-sized model of the object was present in front of them and within reach of their hands. The other two conditions were stereoscopic and monoscopic control conditions without pointers. The subjects' task was to identify differences between a remote and a local object within a limited time. The results show that the Light Beam Metaphor pointer was easier to handle and conformed to a larger degree to the users' expectations, whereas the Reference Space Metaphor pointer received better subjective ratings on efficiency and Telepresence. The analysis of the results of all four conditions established the benefits of 3D over 2D representations for object-oriented communicative situations in terms of appeal and the impression of depth.