CDR DesignSpace: CHI'94 exhibit

DesignSpace at CHI'94 Interactive Experience

Plans and Images are on a separate page.

For the CHI'94 Interactive Experience program, we plan to bring one "full" DesignSpace workstation, complete with the corner work cell and Virtex CyberGlove hand instrumentation for manipulation, and one "minimal" DesignSpace workstation with a single view-pane and pair of manipulator tools. The two stations will be linked to a shared virtual work space, with both private and shared tools and objects. The environment is enhanced with spatial sound, including the remote operator's voice and synthetic sound cues in the environment.

Even though the stations will be collocated, "Designers" at each station will collaborate on a simple assembly as if remotely located, but brought into each workspace to share the project. In this configuration, only changes in geometric data, event data, and voice are exchanged between stations. Data will be exchanged via RS232 at 115 kilobaud.

All participants in the CHI'94 DesignSpace installation will use the "full" station for their introductory experience, while being taught from an experienced "designer" at the "remote" station. Once a participant has been initially trained, they are then welcome to become the teacher at the other station. While the introductory experience will be limited to 5 minutes per person, experienced participants may teach from the remote site for as long as are successful.

Crystal River Engineering, spatial audio technology leaders in Palo Alto, CA, are sponsoring a "full" station in their office in Palo Alto for the week of CHI'94. For several hours each day, the main system at CHI'94 will be linked to the Palo Alto site via normal phonelines and high-speed modem. Participants in Boston will then be taught by staff and visitors to Crystal River Engineering's Palo Alto office. CHI'94 attendees will note that there is no degradation in the experience between a 20' link and a 5000 kilometer link.

Crystal River Engineering will also be sponsoring an "Spatial Listener Interactive Kiosk" (SLIK) that renders the audio space of the DesignSpace interaction for two passive listeners to roam around as "hear-only" ghosts. The two ghostly visitors will be tracked by an IsoTRAK II from Polhemus. The audio will be rendered spatially by a CRE Acoustetron dual-listener server outfitted with CRE Beachtron technology. This display demonstrates the use of spatial audio displays in teleconferencing applications.

Visual graphics for all DesignSpace stations will be computed with image generators furnished by Division,, Ltd. of Bristol, England.

Plans and Images.

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chapin@cdr.stanford.edu

last update - 5 Apr 94