Interaction and co-located collaboration in large projection-based virtual environments

Conventional interaction in large screen projection-based display systems only allows a "master user" to have full control over the application. We have developed the VRGEO Demonstrator application based on an interaction paradigm that allows multiple users to share large projection-based environment displays for co-located collaboration. Following SDG systems we introduce a collaborative interface based on tracked PDAs and integrate common device metaphors into the interface to improve user's learning experience of the virtual environment system. The introduction of multiple workspaces in a virtual environment allows users to spread out data for analysis making use of the large screen space more effectively. Two extended informal evaluation sessions with application domain experts and demonstrations of the system show that our collaborative interaction paradigm improves the learning experience and interactivity of the virtual environment.