Reconsidering the avatar: From user mirror to interaction locus

摘要: This thesis is concerned with shared virtual environmentsfor collaborative work. An important aspect of virtualenvironments the avatar, representation user inthe world. The proper design avatar has been thesubject considerable research, aimed at allowing avatarsto express as much possible human non-verbalcommunication and, it were, tie closer to thevirtual world.I will go through historical development sharedvirtual environments and how principles for avatarshave followed available technology over time. I describeearlier research on extending avatars in orderto better support collaboration spaces. thendescribe a study where pairs subjects cooperated aconstruction task, implications ofcollaborative applications VEs that can be drawn from thisstudy. In particular show used availableresources environment negotiate sharedunderstanding task. Some thesubjects had no visible avatars, but still solved task byusing itself orient themselves drawattention features environment.Following this, co-workers have designed which explicit nor usedtraditional methods navigation 3D space, ratherrelied task-oriented such asagglomerations other users or interesting objects present relevant view environment. A positionmay by several users, be“unoccupied”,merely representing potential site interaction.Based these experiences, make claim atraditional anthropomorphic neither necessary norsuffcient successful spaces, butthe contingenton specific application, some reasonable notutilising all.