Anette von Kapri, Kevin Wong, Seth Hunter, Nick Gillian, Pattie Maes

Abstract

How can we integrate digital information into our physical lives? How can we dive into the full digital experience with our whole body and all of our senses? InReach represents one approach for including proprioception and embodied interaction into an environment for remote collaboration. It explores how remote collaborators can "reach into" a shared digital workspace where they can manipulate virtual objects and data. The collaborators see their live threedimensional (3D) recreated mesh in a shared virtual space on a large screen in front of them and can use their bodies to “inhabit” and interact with 3D models. They can grab digital objects with their bare hands, translate, scale, and rotate them. In contrast with the traditional view for remote conferencing InReach is particularly useful for situations in which users can benefit from seeing their own and the their collaborator’s body in relation to the data and can use their bodies to navigate and manipulate the data.