Designing Tools To Improve Collaborative Interaction in a VR Environment for Teaching Geosciences Interpretation

Abstract

We discuss practical and theoretical solutions to problems that arose during the development of a collaborative VR application in which a teacher guides students through visualization and interactive interpretation of a geological dataset. To provide access to a large number of tools, we introduced a dashboard-style menu that rotates and moves to follow the user through the environment. We expect users to need good awareness of each other in the virtual environment, and especially to understand each other’s attention to specific terrain surface features or annotations. For this, we display an eye gaze cue on the visualized terrain and visually tether a nametag widget on the dashboard to each user’s avatar. Results of an initial usability review, involving an expert geologist guiding students, show promise for sharing eye gaze with a gaze trail as a basic method for understanding attention. Other tested indicators of avatar location or view appeared less important during the terrain feature presentation and interpretation.We additionally summarize ongoing work to enhance collaborative awareness through other eye tracking metrics and physiological data.