A 2D–3D integrated tabletop environment for multi‐user collaboration

Abstract

AbstractThis paper proposes a novel tabletop display system for natural communication and flexible information sharing. The proposed system is specifically designed to integrate two‐dimensional (2D) and three‐dimensional (3D) user interfaces by using a multi‐user stereoscopic display, IllusionHole. The proposed system takes awareness into consideration and provides both 2D and 3D information and user interfaces. On the display, a number of standard Windows desktop environments are provided as personal workspaces, as well as a shared workspace with a dedicated graphical user interface. In the personal workspaces, users can simultaneously access existing applications and data, and exchange information between personal and shared workspaces. In this way, the proposed system can seamlessly integrate personal, shared, 2D, and 3D workspaces with conventional user interfaces and effectively support communication and information sharing. To demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed display system, a modeling application was implemented. A preliminary experiment confirmed the effectiveness of this system. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.