Abstract

Collaborating in a physically remote location saves time and money. Many remote collaboration systems have been studied and commercialized. Their capabilities have been confined to virtual objects and information. More recent studies have focused on collaborating in a physical environment and with physical objects. However, they have limitations including shaky and unstable views (scenes), view dependence, low scalability, and poor content expression. In this paper, we propose a web-based extended reality (XR) collaboration system that alleviates the aforementioned issues and enables effective, reproducible cooperation. Our proposed system comprises three parts: interaction device webization, which expands the web browser’s device interfaces; unified XR representation, which describes content interoperable in both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR); and unified coordinate creation, which enables presenting physical objects’ pose in world coordinates. With this system, a user in VR can intuitively instruct the manipulation of a physical object by manipulating a virtual object representative of the physical object. Conversely, a user in AR can catch up with the instruction by observing the augmented virtual object on the physical object. Moreover, as the pose of the physical object at the AR user’s worksite is reflected in the virtual object, the VR user can recognize the working progress and give feedback to the AR user. To improve remote collaboration, we surveyed XR collaboration studies and proposed a new method for classifying XR collaborative applications based on the virtual–real engagement and ubiquitous computing continuum. We implemented a prototype and conducted a survey among submarine crews, most of whom were positively inclined to use our system, to convey that the system would be helpful in improving their job performance. Furthermore, we suggested possible improvements to it to enhance each participant’s understanding of the other user’s context within the XR collaboration.

中文翻译：

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虚拟现实之外的XR协作：在现实世界中工作

摘要

在物理上遥远的位置进行协作可以节省时间和金钱。许多远程协作系统已经过研究和商业化。它们的功能仅限于虚拟对象和信息。最近的研究集中在物理环境中以及与物理对象的协作上。但是，它们具有局限性，包括不稳定和不稳定的视图（场景），视图依赖性，低可伸缩性和较差的内容表达。在本文中，我们提出了一种基于Web的扩展现实（XR）协作系统，该系统可减轻上述问题并实现有效，可复制的合作。我们提出的系统包括三个部分：交互设备Web化，它扩展了Web浏览器的设备界面；统一的XR表示，描述了可在虚拟现实（VR）和增强现实（AR）中互操作的内容；统一的坐标创建，从而可以在世界坐标中呈现物理对象的姿势。使用该系统，VR中的用户可以通过操纵代表物理对象的虚拟对象来直观地指示物理对象的操作。相反，AR中的用户可以通过观察物理对象上的增强虚拟对象来赶上指令。此外，由于AR对象的工作场所处的物理对象的姿势反映在虚拟对象中，因此VR用户可以识别工作进度并向AR用户反馈。为了改善远程协作，我们调查了XR协作研究，并提出了一种基于虚拟现实参与度和无处不在的计算连续性对XR协作应用程序进行分类的新方法。我们实施了原型并在潜艇船员中进行了调查，其中大多数人积极使用我们的系统，以传达该系统将有助于改善他们的工作表现。此外，我们建议对其进行可能的改进，以增强XR协作中每个参与者对另一用户上下文的理解。