supporting scientific collaboration in amplified collaboration environments

University of Illinois at ChicagoElectronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL)

Kyoung S. Park

Supporting Scientific Collaboration in Amplified Collaboration Environments


Electronic Visualization Laboratory (EVL)

• Established in 1973• Joint Program: Art and Computer Science• First Star Wars film in 1977• Research:

– Visualization– CAVE Research and Development – High-speed Optical Networks – Tele-Immersion– Amplified Collaboration Environments


Amplified Collaboration Environment

• Amplified Collaboration Environments (ACEs) are distributed war rooms which are enhanced with advanced visualization displays and computation (Leigh02).

• Goal is to enhance collaboration among distantly located teams of experts gathered to intensively solve problems.

• Human Factors study over ACEs is intended to understand how people work in display-rich environments, which consist of having every wall be an active display.


Motivation: Maximally Co-located War rooms

War rooms (Olson&Olson00)

• Study of 9 project rooms• Comparison of war room

groups with norm showed performance of war room group well above corporate average (Teasley00)

• Characteristics of war rooms:– Persistence of information– Spatiality of human

interaction and deictic reference

– Group awareness– Immediacy of access to

information and experts


The Continuum : Amplified Collaboration Environment for Scientific Investigation

• To develop integrated ubiquitous tools and environments for collaborative scientific research in which collaborators can visualize, analyze and solve scientific problems

• EVL’s Continuum consists of the number of modular technologies:– Video Conferencing– Immersion – Large Scale Data Visualization and Distribution– Annotation – Wireless Interaction


The Continuum at EVL

Tiled Display(LCD tiles for high resolution,

or plasma screens)

Passive stereoImmersive Display

Access Grid

Plasma Touch-screen(annotations)


Access Grid

• Multi-sites conferencing – http://www.accessgrid.org/

cameras

desktop ambient mics

speakers


Passive Stereoscopic Immersive Display

• Tele-Immersion content distribution (Leigh01)• Widespread adoption by GeoWall Consortium for

research & education in the Geosciences (Nayak02)


Tiled LCD Display

• Treat tiled display as a large digital corkboard on which information can be posted permanently for long term collaborative work

• SpaceGlider as a remote control of all Continuum displays as if one big screen (Chowdhry02)

• Switcher to jump between screens (Leigh02)


Collaborative Annotation

• Shared persistent whiteboard and flipcharts through plasma touchscreen


Continuum Design Study

• Iterative improvement of 2 networked Continuum spaces (Park03)

• Observe and explore design issues for interaction of lots of displays and multiple simultaneous inputs in ACE

• Observe how display-rich environments affect group awareness and parallelism in distance collaboration


Study Methods

• 1 pilot study and 4 iterative design studies with system configuration variations

• Tiled display was main display used• 19 students (all subjects participated in two studies)• A group of 3~4 students performed a set of

collaborative scientific tasks:– Web-based search and information fusion– Information visualization of multivariate data– Collaborative brainstorming and design

• Measures– Observation; Video recording; Survey; Interview;

Logging


Initial Use of the Continuum – Pilot Study (Distributed)

• Access Grid (full-AG setting; mini-AG setting)

• Shared Whiteboard• Focus Display (for group

discussion)• Distributed Corkboard

Tiled Display with Switcher

• 1 Input Control per Site

AG WhiteboardFocus Displayprojector/screen

mini-AG WhiteboardFocus Displayprojector/screen

LCD1

LCD4

LCD3

LCD2

LCD1

LCD3 LCD4

LCD2Tiled Display

Mini-AG Room

AG Room

side viewcamera

close-upcamera

close-upcamera

WB viewcamera

overviewcamera


Initial Use of the Continuum – Pilot Study(Co-located)

• Shared Whiteboard• Focus Display with KVM

switcher• Distributed Corkboard

Tiled Display (1x4 format) with Switcher

• 1 Input Control per UserFocus Displayprojector/screen

LCD1

LCD4

LCD3

LCD2

Whiteboard

AG Room


Pilot Study Observations

• Sense of ownership for the resources• Tiled display offered partitioned group workspace

while maintaining necessary awareness between distributed users

• Tiled display was useful for multiple linked views and side-by-side comparison

• Flexible tiled display that can project up to single large high-resolution data visualization

• Treat Continuum’s displays as one big screen• Need to provide input control per individual


Evaluation of Seamless Distributed Corkboard – Study 1

• Access Grid (full-AG setting; mini-AG setting)

• Shared Whiteboard• Seamless Distributed

Corkboard Tiled Display using SpaceGlider (to support the illusion of one seamless display)

• 1 Input Control per User• Physical Layout

AG Whiteboard

mini-AG WhiteboardTiled Display

Tiled Display

Mini-AG Room

AG Room

WB viewcamera

overviewcamera

close-upcamera

Users can glide a mousefrom screen to screen

side viewcamera

close-upcamera


Study 1 Observations

• Seamless distributed corkboard tiled display– Privacy concern (for locking individual workspace)– Treated as one seamless display; mouse conflicts– Group shared workspace– Public visibility helped group focused work– Casual glancing; but, often checked task progress– Data transfer between displays (copy-and-paste;

read-and-write collaboration; use of paper)– Need close-up view

• Shared resource sharing over whiteboard• Need more microphones and cameras in mini-AG

setting!


Whiteboard

WhiteboardTiled Display

Tiled Display

Mini-AG Room

AG Room

close-upcamera

WB viewcamera

overviewcamera

close-upcamera

overviewcameraUsers can glide a mouse

from screen to screen

mini-AG

AG

side viewcamera

Evaluation of Seamless Distributed Corkboard with Personal Displays – Study 2

• Access Grid (full-AG setting; improved mini-AG setting)

• Shared Whiteboard• Seamless Distributed

Corkboard Tiled Display using SpaceGlider (between tiled display and whiteboard)

• Tablet w/screen echo (to support close up view)



• Seamless distributed corkboard with personal displays– Mixed: Tablet as individual workspace and Tiled

Display as group workspace– Less casual glancing; task awareness– Public visibility helped mixed focus collaboration– Privacy concern (to focus assigned individual work)– Treated as one seamless display; mouse conflicts– Tablet helped proximity but raised size issue– Users felt no continuity of the workspace

• Use of audio/video for shared resource sharing• Increased remote interaction; but, video overload• Read-and-write collaboration over AG


Evaluation of Discrete Flexible Tiled Display with Personal Displays – Study 3


• Shared Whiteboard• Discrete Flexible Shared

Tiled Display (with different background colors) with Switcher

• Tablet w/screen echo• Layout Changes

AG Whiteboard

mini-AG Whiteboard

One screen canbe maximized

over TiledDisplay

One screen canbe maximized

over TiledDisplay

Mini-AG Room

AG Room

Flexible SharedTiled Display

Flexible SharedTiled Display

close-upcamera

WB viewcamera

overviewcamera

close-upcamera

side viewcamera

overviewcamera



• Discrete flexible tiled display with personal displays– Full-screen used for group discussion and personal

uses (helped size problem)– Users can still work on Tablet while full-screen– Fewer mouse conflicts; no seamless display– Putting displays together helped copy-and-paste – Provided less public visibility; less casual glancing– Privacy concern (for personal thing - email)– Still copy-and-paste; read-and-write collab.over AG– Shared resource turn-taking over whiteboard

• Finished faster; More casual interaction with remote users; Increased WB usages; Higher user satisfaction


Evaluation of Presentation-model Display with Personal Displays – Study 4


• Shared Whiteboard• Presentation-model

Display (to provide more privacy by sharing only single individual’s workspace at a time) with Switcher

• Tablet w/screen echo

AG Whiteboard

mini-AG WhiteboardPresentation-modelTiled Display

Presentation-modelTiled Display

Mini-AG Room

AG Room

close-upcamera

WB viewcamera

overviewcamera

close-upcamera

side viewcamera

overviewcamera



• Presentation-model display with personal displays– Provided more privacy but no casual glancing– ‘Show me’ pattern by less visibility– Wanted distributed corkboard back! to glance

other’s work (i.e. awareness) and to display data side-by-side (i.e. resolution issue)

– No privacy concern– No mouse conflict by no control sharing– Disappeared read-and-write collaboration over AG

• Shared resource sharing over Presentation Display• Quality degraded; Limited interaction with remote

users; Decreased WB usages; Low user satisfaction


Discussion: Summary of Study Design System ConfigurationsPilot Study1 Study2 Study3 Study4

Individual vs. Group workspace

Group Group Mixed Mixed Individual

Visibility Public Public Public Less Public

More private

Awareness Casual glance

Casual glance

Less casual glance

Less casual glance

No glance

Seamless vs. Discrete display

Discrete

Seamless Seamless Discrete Discrete

Resolution, size, proximity & layout

Close up display

Fullscreen;

Layout

Reduced resolution

Resource sharing

pattern observed

Input Whiteboard WB; Fullscreen

Presentation Display


Discussion: Communication

• Audio– Overhearing –> provide microphones next to all

displays– Collaboration halts by audio fails; but not easily

repaired by using text chat• Video

– How to position/angle camera? – Multiple video sources useful?– Wall-size video display useful?– How to arrange multiple video sources in the

display?


Discussion: Shared Workspace

• Multiple users interaction over group workspace– Ownership pattern –> Need locking– Turn-taking pattern –> Need identification

• Individual/Group Workspace– Public workspace provides information fully visible

and supports group awareness– Presentation-model display (Private->Public)

showed visibility problem– Individual workspace needed to be visible for

collaborative work!– Need close up display for individual focus work– Group co-reference should always be visible


Discussion: Display-rich Environment User Interface

• Seamless vs. Discrete Display– SpaceGlider is good for 1 user; but, many collisions

for multiple users (mainly by accidental intrusion)– Switcher avoids collisions between multiple users;

but, not scalable to many tiles• Data Transfer between Displays

– Copy-and-paste (only with search task)– Move windows between displays (only with

seamless display)– Used various channels (e.g. tablet, paper, verbal)– Putting displays closer together helped copy-and-

paste


Discussion: Parallelism/Awareness

• Task Parallelism – Task types (Mixed-focus vs. Group focused work)– Group work styles (Divided work vs. Work together)– Provide individual workspace– Need awareness when user’s working in parallel

• Group Awareness– Shared resource sharing awareness –> Need

identification– Task awareness –> Need group coordination tool– Awareness by overhearing and casual glancing– Overhearing and displaying spatiality of human

interaction over AG


Conclusions

• Lessons learned:– Provide individual workspace for parallel work– Maximize visibility to enhance group awareness

and interaction for distributed teams– Provide close up display for focus work– Support easy transition between individual work

and group work – Group co-reference should always be visible

• Improvements:– Need identification for shared resources sharing– Need coordination tool


Future Directions

• Further human factors research on Amplified Collaboration Environments (ACEs)– Exploring design issues of shared workspace – Long distance collaboration – e.g. EVL and

TRECC– Exploring organizational or social factors

• Research on intensive computing and data mining over ACE

• Developing advanced visualization and collaboration technology to support ACE


Building a Collaborative Bridge – The Continuum @TRECC


Varrier : Tiled Auto-Stereoscopic LCD Display

• Use barrier strip material in front of LCD to create autostereoscopic image.

• 4 horizontal pixels to create 1 stereoscopic pixel- oversampling to reduce aliasing.

• Use low-latency tracking to eliminate pseudo-stereo.


References

• Park, K., Renambot, L., Leigh, J., Johnson, A., The Impact of Display-rich Environments for Enhancing Task Parallelism and Group Awareness in Advanced Collaborative Environments, In Workshop on Advanced Collaboration Environments, Seattle, WA, June 22-24, 2003.

• Leigh, J., Johnson, A., Park, K., Nayak, A., Singh, R., Chowdry, V., Amplified Collaboration Environments, In the proceedings of VR Grid Workshop, November 26, 2002, Daejun, Korea, pp. 77-85.

• Park, K., Cho, Y., Krishnaprasad, N., Scharver, C., Lewis, M., Leigh, J., Johnson, A., CAVERNsoft G2: A Toolkit for High Performance Tele-Immersive Collaboration, Proceedings of the ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology 2000, Oct 22-25, 2000, Seoul, Korea, pp. 8-15.

• Park, K., Kapoor, A., Leigh, J., Lessons Learned from Employing Multiple Perspectives In a Collaborative Virtual Environment for Visualizing Scientific Data, Proceedings of ACM CVE 2000, San Francisco, CA, 09/10/00-09/12/00, pp. 73-82.

• Park, K., Kenyon, R., Effects of Network Characteristics on Human Performance in a Collaborative Virtual Environment, Proceedings of IEEE VR `99, Houston, TX, 03/13/99 - 03/17/99.


Thank You

• For more information:– www.evl.uic.edu/cavern/continuum

• This work is supported in part by:– The National Science Foundation– The Office of Naval Research through the

Technology Research Education and Commercialization Center (TRECC)

– Microsoft Corporation

supporting scientific collaboration in amplified collaboration environments

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