A study on the application of DVE to a mental support system for the aged segregated from family

Abstract

A DVE system is proposed to support the aged people mentally when they are segregated from family. It gives a new way for them to get together with family members, relatives and old friends who are living at distant locations. All the participants show up on the screen in front of each participant in the form of avatars and share a common virtual place through the Internet. By the system, they can play games, watch pictures and videos together with other participants. They may even sing together. The system is designed putting more emphasis to the pleasant atmosphere of being together rather than mimicking a real meeting. Plural tabletop devices are used for the participants at distant locations to input data to manipulate their avatars and move the objects in the virtual place. As those tabletop devices collect data by simply touching and dragging apart of the projection image on top, the burdens of the aged users are greatly eased by this scheme.