Video conferencing permits people in different locations to interact, but it doesn't enable the sharing of work objects. On the other hand, various kinds of visualization software let distributed teams view and share work objects, however these applications don't support personal interaction either.
The Virtual Collaborative Design prototype from Accenture Technology Labs combines the best of these two kinds of technologies into a powerful collaborative solution. Participants have face-to-face contact as if they were looking at each other through a window. One person can touch and manipulate an object and, if other participants need to make a point, they can just take hold of it, as they could do with a real physical object. Participants have access to onscreen menus that can bring up documents and other reference information. When they point to things onscreen, they do so just like they would in person.
The result is a very human interface and using Virtual Collaborative Design is exceedingly intuitive. Participants can rely on basic social conventions to determine how they work together. Virtual Collaborative Design is a high-tech solution that supports very low-tech "natural" interactions. The result is a much more productive collaboration solution. Virtual Collaborative Design can be a valuable solution for the aerospace industry, pharmaceutical companies or any industry that requires people in multiple locations to work together using complex data. It enables collaboration in ways that were simply not possible before.
People
- Kelly Dempski (project leader)