Benjamin Köhne

Electronic Glassboard – An interactive tele-presence application

This project is concerned with the conception of a novel tele-presence system with an integrated interactive component. Previous solutions in this research area mainly focus on communication and do not offer sufficient, intuitive cooperation support for distributed meeting members. The Electronic Glassboard fills this gap by integrating the video display and drawing area. This allows for cooperative sketching without losing direct eye-contact with the cooperation partner.

Embodied Software Design Spaces

A virtual world environment serves as a persistent virtual design space that allows data flow between the virtual collaborative awareness environment and an IDE.

• Directly linked to IDE (switching between IDE and virtual environment, automated data flow)
• Regions and islands represent design stages (brainstorming, modeling, implementation)
• Avatar’s location and appearance signal responsibility and current activity
• Components can be exported as tangible objects and shared with team members
• Versioning allows going back to early drafts and design sketches
• Design and implementation activities become expressive in the virtual environment