Coglobe: a co-located multi-person FTVR experience

Abstract

Fish Tank Virtual Reality (FTVR) creates a compelling 3D illusion for a single person by rendering to their perspective with head-tracking. However, typically, other participants cannot share in the experience since they see a weirdly distorted image when they look at the FTVR display making it difficult to work and play together. To overcome this problem, we have created CoGlobe: a large spherical FTVR display for multiple users. Using CoGlobe, Siggraph attendees will experience the latest advance of FTVR that supports multiple people co-located in a shared space working and playing together through two different multiplayer games and tasks. We have created a competitive two-person 3D Pong game (Figure 1b) for attendees to experience a highly interactive two-person game looking at the CoGlobe. Onlookers can also watch using a variation of mixed reality with a tracked mobile smartphone. Using a smartphone as a second screen registered to the same virtual world enables multiple people to interact together as well. We have also created a cooperative multi-person 3D drone game (Figure 1c) to illustrate cooperation in FTVR. Attendees will also see how effective co-located 3D FTVR is when cooperating on a complex 3D mental rotation (Figure 1d) and a path-tracing task (Figure 1a). CoGlobe overcomes the limited situation awareness of headset VR, while retaining the benefits of cooperative 3D interaction and thus is an exciting direction for the next wave of 3D displays for work and fun for Siggraph attendees to experience.