Head tracking based avatar control for virtual environment teamwork training

Date
2011
Authors
Marks, S
Windsor, JA
Wünsche, B
Supervisor
Item type
Conference Contribution
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier
Abstract

Virtual environments (VE) are gaining in popularity and are increasingly used for teamwork training purposes, e.g., for medical teams. One shortcoming of modern VEs is that nonverbal communication channels, essential for teamwork, are not supported well. We address this issue by using an inexpensive webcam to track the user's head. This tracking information is used to control the head movement of the user's avatar, thereby conveying head gestures and adding a nonverbal communication channel. We conducted a user study investigating the influence of head tracking based avatar control on the perceived realism of the VE and on the performance of a surgical teamwork training scenario. Our results show that head tracking positively influences the perceived realism of the VE and the communication, but has no major influence on the training outcome.

Description
Keywords
Virtual Environments , Head Tracking , Nonverbal Communication , Teamwork Training , Surgery
Source
GRAPP 2011 - Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applicationspp.257 - 269
DOI
Rights statement
Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in (see Citation). Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. The definitive version was published in (see Citation). The original publication is available at (see Publisher's Version)