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

受日益增长的全球市场的潜力和需求的驱动，以及信息和通信技术的进步，现代工作场所的趋势之一是更加分散的团队工作。分布式工作长期以来一直是计算机科学的一个主要主题，但是尽管有出色的工作和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，面对面的会议是不可替代的。随之而来的出差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，试图确定某些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，仍然是非常相关的。有许多常见的协作场景需要一种更自然的跨距离交互方式。具体来说，我们已经确定了有意识和潜意识的注意力和情感交流是常见的关键因素，这些因素使得许多这样的场景在没有眼睛注视的情况下很难得到支持。眼注视是协作中的一种重要的交互资源，但在当今的通信技术中却得不到很好的支持。事实上，许多人声称，缺乏忠实地表示眼睛注视的能力是当前CSCW系统的主要缺陷。在今天的基于视频的系统中，如果用户愿意直视摄像头，眼睛可以以某种有限的方式保持注视，但这在社交场合是不必要的限制，特别是在对象或环境集中的协作中。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，该系统支持双向和三向交流眼睛注视，而不限制参与者的注视方向。我们将把眼球追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，以建立一个一致的协作虚拟环境，在这个环境中，每个参与者都可以看到对方，并准确地跟踪他们的目光。为了证明该系统的实用性，我们将把它与AccessGrid技术进行比较，后者在大型墙壁显示器上提供最先进的视频会议。虽然不能支持移动参与者之间的眼神交流，但AccessGrid在工作环境中的放置和表现的真实性方面确实提供了优势。对这两种方法的比较将为各自的未来发展提供有价值的见解。通过一系列的实验，我们将确定哪些条件是必要的和充分的，以支持通信眼睛注视在一个远程通信系统；通过测量眼睛注视对协作的影响来验证眼睛注视在远程通信中的支持作用；衡量技术方法和变量的影响；确定什么时候眼睛注视是重要的；并建立眼神注视对远距离成功合作至关重要的情境。

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.