Distributed interaction in virtual spaces

Virtual spaces based on the metaphor of "shared network places" are becoming a well accepted implementation approach for multiuser, multimedia, distributed cooperative work environments to support the work activities and interactions of goal oriented business teams. Similar to real-life physical team rooms, which provide a permanent shared space used by a work group, TEAMWORKPLACE, the virtual space presented in the paper provides a virtual meeting room, i.e. a place to store, retrieve and present multimedia content (documents), to design and construct cooperatively, to brainstorm, to negotiate and make decisions, to run shared applications, to browse enterprise data, or to acquire, formalise and exchange enterprise knowledge. Since physical team rooms rely on the physical proximity of the team members and their easy access to the common work space, this access breaks down when groups are geographically dislocated. For such teams, TEAMWORKPLACE provides the electronic equivalent of a physical team room transcending distance, time zones, and organisational boundaries. TEAMWORKPLACE is based essentially on two open technologies: the virtual reality modelling language (VRML) and Java. A Java-enabled Web browser, together with a VRML plug-in is the only requirement for the execution of TEAMWORKPLACE on current consumer hardware.