Figure 1 A user operating a UCAVE implementation inside and outside featuring a lightweight head-mounted display, smart phones and immersive 3D rendering. Ubiquitous Collaborative Activity Virtual Environments Aryabrata Basu University of Georgia basuarya@uga.edu Andrew Raij University of South Florida raij@usf.edu Kyle Johnsen University of Georgia kjohnsen@uga.edu ABSTRACT We introduce a new paradigm of collaborative computing called the Ubiquitous Collaborative Activity Virtual Environment (UCAVE). UCAVEs are portable immersive virtual environments that leverage mobile communication platforms, motion trackers and displays to facilitate ad-hoc virtual collaboration. We discuss design criteria and research challenges for UCAVEs, as well as a prototype hardware configuration that enables UCAVE interactions using modern smart phones and head mounted displays. Author Keywords Virtual environment, collaborative, mobile, ubiquitous, virtual reality, display ACM Classification Keywords H5.m. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Miscellaneous. General Terms Human Factors; Design; Measurement; Experimentation. INTRODUCTION Collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) enable spatially distributed users to work together on shared tasks in a real- time artificial reality. While a variety of interfaces exist for CVEs, researchers have noted that immersive interfaces offer unique interaction affordances and potential benefits to collaborative work [9]. However, immersion is difficult to achieve in a widespread, practical manner. The “work to make it work” has been substantial; sufficient equipment has only been available in dedicated research and development laboratories, and these conditions limit widespread deployment [5, 9]. In this paper, we present the ubiquitous collaborative activity virtual environment (UCAVE) concept, which enables immersive virtual collaborations with minimal, portable infrastructure. An immersive interface to a CVE most commonly includes technology for natural viewing of a virtual environment and control over an avatar embodiment. Examples include the immersive interfaces provided by the DiVE and Massive CVEs [4], such as head-mounted and spatially immersive displays with user body tracking for avatar control. This is in contrast to non-immersive interfaces, which typically employ fixed planar displays and indirect control schemes such as a keyboard, mouse and on-screen widgets. While non-immersive interfaces are highly accessible to end-users and support a wide range of interactions, the viewing and control schemes are noted to be frustrating and perhaps misleading in some collaborative work situations [9]. For example, where an avatar is gazing is not necessarily where a user is gazing. Immersive interfaces are often suggested to counter such effects, where the user is directly controlling the avatar and seeing what others perceive the avatar to see [9, 10]. However, the practical reality of immersive interfaces includes high cost, visual quality tradeoffs, extensive setup, user encumbrance, and limited deployment possibilities. The UCAVE concept presented here offers a vision that this reality is changing; that immersive interfaces to CVEs are possible and can be as useable, portable and inexpensive as non-immersive interfaces. The UCAVE aims to make an immersive interface a choice that is dictated by application requirements and not by logistical limitations. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. CSCW’12, February 11–15, 2012, Seattle, Washington, USA. Copyright 2012 ACM 978-1-4503-1086-4/12/02...$10.00.