SpatialViewer: A Remote Work Sharing Tool that Considers Intimacy Among Workers
This addresses discomfort for remote workers by enabling intimacy-based spatial adjustments, but it is incremental as it builds on existing telework systems with augmented reality enhancements.
The researchers tackled the problem of discomfort in remote work due to inability to adjust spatial distance based on intimacy, proposing a spatial augmented reality system that allows users to change projection positions with gestures and synchronize audio with distance, resulting in improved user comfort as shown in experiments and surveys.
Due to the influence of the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19), teleworking has been expanding rapidly. Although existing interactive remote working systems are convenient, they do not allow users to adjust their spatial distance to team members at will, %"Arbitrarily" is probably not the best word here. It means without apparent reason. A better expression might be "at will." and they ignore the discomfort caused by different levels of intimacy. To solve this issue, we propose a telework support system using spatial augmented reality technology. This system calibrates the space in which videos are projected with real space and adjusts the spatial distance between users by changing the position of projections. Users can switch the projection position of the video using hand-wave gestures. We also synchronize audio according to distance to further emphasize the sense of space within the remote interaction: the distance between projection position and user is inversely proportional to the audio volume. We conducted a telework experiment and a questionnaire survey to evaluate our system. The results show that the system enables users to adjust distance according to intimacy and thus improve the users' comfort.