The Internet Foyer

The Internet Foyer is an example of a mixed reality - an electronic meeting space which spans the physical and virtual worlds. The Internet Foyer involves the use of Collaborative Virtual Environment technology to create a navigable and populated 3-D visualisation of an organisation's WWW home pages.

Using collaborative virtual reality software, people can enter a specific Internet Foyer from anywhere over the Internet. Once inside, they can navigate the 3-D visualisation, selecting pages of interest. They are also made aware of the presence of other VR users and are able to communicate with them using live audio links in much the same way as they would be if they encountered them in a normal foyer in a physical buidling. In addition, they are made aware of the presence of users of more traditional 2-D (i.e. dimensionally challenged) WWW browsers who happen to be wandering over these particular WWW pages at the time.

To complete the Internet Foyer, this visualisation is then projected onto the wall of a physical foyer in a real building while, simultaneously, a real-time video image from the physcial foyer is texture mapped back into the visualisation. This allows visitors to the virtual and physical foyers to communicate with one another.

The Internet Foyer is the first of a range of mixed reality applications being developed at Nottingham. Also under development is The Arena, a performance space which links a real theatre to a virtual analogue using the same techniques.

Goal

Foyers are important areas of physical buildings for a variety of reasons. First, they present the public face of a building and the organisation(s) which it houses. The significance of this function alone should not be underestimated; large sums of money are spent on making foyers interesting and impressive places. Second, foyers provide a context for locating useful information for visitors such as maps, directories and displays. Third, from a cooperative point of view, they may be home to various people whose job it is to help these visitors (e.g. receptionists). Fourth, they enhance security by providing a single point of entry into the organisation within which incoming and outgoing people are made publicly visible and hence accountable. Indeed, foyers may often contain security staff and areas where visitors sign in. Fifth, they provide public meeting places, either for arranged rendezvous or for chance encounters. Some larger foyers contain shops, cafes and other facilities which encourage this kind of social function.

Turning away from physical space and towards virtual space for a moment, it is clear that many organisations are making increasing use of computer networks and many have established a public network presence through services such as the World Wide Web. Thus, in parallel with the physical manifestation of buildings, organisations are increasingly acquiring an electronic manifestation through computer networks. In such cases, the public "home" pages of an organisation on the WWW could be considered to be a kind of foyer: a public entry point into the organisation's network manifestation. There is certainly evidence that organisations are investing considerable effort into turning their WWW pages into interesting and impressive places.

However, when considered as foyers, WWW pages leave much to be desired. The people who pass through them are not generally visible to one another or to other observers (a major criticism of current WWW technology in general). Thus, security may be compromised and there are no opportunities for rendezvous and social encounters. There are therefore two main goals to the Internet Foyer:

1. To construct a virtual foyer based on a populated visualisation of an organisation's WWW space which might come closer to the functionality of a real foyer. On its own, this virtual foyer would represent an application of CVE technology.
2. To merge this virtual foyer with the real foyer to provide an integrated shared space which spans both the physical and virtual worlds. Thus, visitors entering an organisation's WWW space would be able to interact with those entering its physical space and vice versa.

Functionality

The overall concept of the Internet Foyer is summarised by Figure 1. On the left of the picture we see visitors in a traditional physical foyer. Projected onto the wall of this physical foyer for its inhabitants to see is a graphical visualisation of the virtual foyer. On the right of the picture we see the virtual foyer, a 3-D graphical visualisation of an organisation's home pages whose electronic visitors are mutually embodied (i.e. visible to one another) and are able to communicate with one another through open audio channels. A video window in the virtual foyer affords its occupants a corresponding view back into the real foyer and an open audio channel allows communication between the two spaces.

There are three ways to experience the Internet Foyer: as a visitor to the physical foyer, as the user of a collaborative virtual environment and as the user of a traditional WWW browser. The following paragraphs summarise the functionality of the Internet Foyer as seen by each of these types of user.

As a visitor to the physical foyer:

such users enter a normal physical space. Projected onto a wall of that space is the graphical representation of the virtual foyer. This representation shows a number of linked WWW pages drawn as a 3-D network structure. It also shows the presence of virtual reality users in the virtual foyer via graphical user embodiments which move around this visualisation. These graphical embodiments include live video textured faces in order to convey facial expression. In addition, the visualisation shows graphical representations of traditional WWW browser users who happen to be wandering across the pages depicted in the visualisation. Animated movements show the progress of these users as they flit from page to page. Finally, an open audio link allows communication with the virtual reality users in the virtual foyer.

As the user of a collaborative virtual environment:

CVE users see the same basic visualisation as those in the physical foyer, However, they are able to freely navigate around the visualisation, homing in on specific details or backing off in order to obtain a perspective view. They are also able to select objects in the visualisation (both representations of WWW pages and of other users). At present, selecting another object launches the Mosaic WWW browser to display its contents. A real-time video window which is texture mapped onto a wall of the virtual foyer allows CVE users to look out into the physical foyer and to see its occupants looking back at them. Finally, an open audio link supports communication with other CVE users and with those in the physical foyer.

As the user of a traditional WWW browser:

These users see the Internet foyer as a series of WWW pages. On entering the foyer they are asked to register themselves using a simple form. Beyond this, additional pages provide information about current and recent visitors, displayed as simple textual lists and may display captured images from both the real and virtual foyers.

Figures 2, 3 and 4 present images of the Internet Foyer as it appears to different users.

Figure 2 shows an overview of the Internet Foyer as it appears to a CVE user. The image shows a visualisation of several interlinked WWW pages (green spheres connected by blue arrows), the presence of another CVE user (yellow body with live video face), a distant video window into the physical foyer and also the presence of several Mosaic users.

Figure 3 shows a view from the same user when they have homed in on a specific part of the WWW visualisation. This image shows how the presence of the Mosaic users is represented in more detail. Selecting one of the spheres or one of these user representations would result in the Mosaic browser being launched in order to display its contents (a WWW page).

Finally, figure 4 shows how the Internet Foyer appears to visitors in the physical foyer. It should be noted that, at the present time, the Internet Foyer has only been configured in our local laboratory (we plan to install it in a more realistic situation - i.e. a real foyer - over the next few months).

The Implementation of the Internet Foyer

The implementation of the Internet Foyer relies on the integration of several existing technologies. The following paragraphs highlight the key techniques used.

Links

The following are links to related pages: