Eye Catching: Supporting tele-communicational eye-gaze in Collaborative Virtual Environments

在日益增长的全球市场的潜力和需求的推动下，以及信息和通信技术的进步的推动下，现代工作场所的一个趋势是更分散的团队工作。分布式工作长期以来一直是计算机科学中的一个主要主题，但尽管工作出色，高度复杂的计算机支持的协同工作(CSCW)系统的发展，在许多情况下，没有什么可以取代面对面的会议。随之而来的会议旅行需求对个人的生活质量和生产力产生了直接的短期影响。我们目前对长途旅行的依赖可能还会产生更深远的影响。因此，尝试确定一些CSCW失败的原因，并研究可能的技术，以扩大可以避免面对面会议的情况，仍然是非常重要的。有许多常见的协作场景需要一种更自然的远程交互方式。具体地说，我们已经将注意力和情感的有意识和潜意识交流确定为共同的关键因素，使许多这样的场景在没有眼睛凝视的情况下很难得到支持。眼睛凝视是协作中一种关键的交互资源，但在当今的通信技术中并没有得到很好的支持。事实上，许多人声称，缺乏忠实地表示眼睛凝视的能力是当前CSCW系统的关键缺陷。在今天的基于视频的系统中，如果用户愿意直接看着摄像机，眼睛凝视可以以某种有限的方式保持，但这在社交场景中是不必要的限制，特别是在对象或环境聚焦的协作期间。我们建议评估眼睛凝视在远程通信中的作用，以便更好地设计未来的通信技术。为此，我们将建立世界上第一个远程协作系统，支持双向和三向交流的眼睛凝视，而不限制参与者的凝视方向。我们将把眼睛跟踪技术集成到沉浸式投影技术(IPT)显示器中，并开发必要的软件，以构建一个一致的协作虚拟环境，每个参与者都可以在其中看到对方并准确跟踪他们的眼睛凝视。为了证明这个系统的实用性，我们将把它与AccessGrid技术进行比较，后者在大屏幕上提供最先进的视频会议。虽然AccessGrid不能支持移动参与者之间的眼睛凝视交流，但它在工作环境中的位置和表示的真实感方面确实提供了优势。这两种方法的比较将为每种方法的未来发展提供宝贵的见解。通过一系列实验，我们将确定在远程通信系统中支持眼睛凝视的必要条件和充分条件；通过衡量眼睛凝视对协作的影响来验证远程通信中眼睛凝视的支持；衡量技术方法和变量的影响；确定眼睛凝视何时重要；以及建立眼睛凝视对远程协作成功至关重要的情况。

Driven by the potentials and demands of an increasing global market and fed by advances in information and communication technology, one of the trends in the modern workplace is for more distributed team working. Distributed working has long been a major topic in computer science, but despite excellent work and the development of highly sophisticated computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) systems, in many situations there is no substitute for a face-to-face meeting. The consequent demands for travel to meetings have immediate short term quality of life and productivity impacts on individuals. There may also be more far-reaching and profound implications of our current reliance on long distance travel. Thus it is still very relevant to try to determine why some CSCW fails and to research possible technologies for expanding the situations for which face to face meetings can be avoided. There are numerous common collaborative scenarios that require a more natural way of interacting across a distance. Specifically we have identified conscious and subconscious communication of attention and emotion as common critical elements that make many such scenarios hard to support without eye-gaze. Eye-gaze is a key interactional resource in collaboration but it is not well supported in today's communication technology. Indeed many have claimed that lack of ability to faithfully represent eye-gaze is the key failing of current CSCW systems. Within today's video based systems eye-gaze can be maintained in some limited way if the user is willing to look directly at a camera, but this is unnecessarily constraining in a social situation, especially during object or environment focussed collaboration.We propose to evaluate the role of eye-gaze in tele-communication so as to better design future communication technologies. To do this we will build the world's first tele-collaboration system that supports two and three way communicational eye-gaze without restricting the gaze direction of participants. We will integrate eye-tracking technologies into Immersive Projection Technology (IPT) displays, and develop the software necessary to build a consistent collaborative virtual environment where each participant can see the other and accurately track their eye-gaze. To prove the utility of this system we will compare it to AccessGrid technology which provides state-of-the-art video conferencing on large wall displays. Although unable to support communicational eye-gaze between moving participants, AccessGrid does offer advantages in terms of placement within working environments and realism of representation. Comparison between the two approaches will provide valuable insight into future development of each. Through a series of experiments we will establish what conditions are necessary and sufficient to support communicational eye-gaze in a tele-communication system; validate the support of eye-gaze in tele-communication by measuring its impact on collaboration; measure the impact of technology approaches and variables; establish when eye-gaze is important; and establish situations where eye-gaze is critical for successful collaboration at a distance.