TeleGate: Multi-user Semi-teleportation for Remote Collaboration in Mixed Reality 360-Videos

Abstract

<p><b>Telepresence systems enable people to feel present in a remote space while their bodies remain in their local space. To enhance telepresence, the remote environment needs to be captured and visualised in an immersive way. For instance, 360-degree videos (360-videos) shown on head-mounted displays (HMDs) provide high fidelity telepresence in a remote place. Mixed reality (MR) in 360-videos enables interactions with virtual objects blended in the captured remote environment while it allows telepresence only for a single user wearing HMD. For this reason, it has limitations when multiple users want to experience telepresence together and naturally collaborate within a teleported space. </b></p><p>This thesis presents TeleGate, a novel multi-user teleportation platform for remote collaboration in a MR space. TeleGate provides "semi-teleportation" into the MR space using large-scale displays, acting as a bridge between the local physical communication space and the remote collaboration space created by MR with captured 360-videos. Our proposed platform enables multi-user semi-teleportation to perform collaborative tasks in the remote MR collaboration (MRC) space while allowing for natural communication between collaborators in the same local physical space. </p><p>We implemented a working prototype of TeleGate and then conducted a user study to evaluate our concept of semi-teleportation. We measured the spatial presence, social presence while participants performed remote collaborative tasks in the MRC space. Additionally, we also explored the different control mechanisms within the platform in the remote MR collaboration scenario. </p><p>In conclusion, TeleGate enabled multiple co-located users to semi-teleport together using large-scale displays for remote collaboration in MR 360-videos.</p>