Mixing Different Realities in a Single Shared Space

Abstract

The concept of internet of everything involves an intelligent connection of people, processes, data, and things. In this sense, shared spaces aimed to connect different users that collaborate following a common purpose are of relevance to the field. Many computer-based collaborative environments have been proposed in recent years. However, the design of mixed-platform collaborative spaces, in which different paradigms—such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)—are blended, is still uncommon. This chapter aims to analyze the benefits and features of these systems, reviewing existing related works and proposing a series of features for the design of effective mixed-platform collaborative shared spaces. In particular, the authors propose five setups with different levels of immersion/interaction, which are aligned to the current state of the art. These systems will be analyzed with respect to navigation, user representation, interaction, and annotation, among others. Finally, some applications are proposed within the given framework.