Telepresence VR systems allow for face-to-face communication, promoting the feeling of presence and understanding of nonverbal cues. However, when discussing virtual 3D objects, limitations to presence and communication cause deictic gestures to lose meaning due to disparities in orientation. Current approaches use shared perspective, and avatar overlap to restore these references, which cause occlusions and discomfort that worsen when multiple users participate. We introduce a new approach to shared perspective in multi-user collaboration where the avatars are not co-located. Each person sees the others' avatars at their positions around the workspace while having a first-person view of the workspace. Whenever a user manipulates an object, others will see his/her arms stretching to reach that object in their perspective. SPARC combines a shared orientation and supports nonverbal communication, minimizing occlusions. We conducted a user study (n=18) to understand how the novel approach impacts task performance and workspace awareness. We found evidence that SPARC is more efficient and less mentally demanding than life-like settings.

翻译：摘要：远程呈现VR系统支持面对面交流，能提升临场感并促进非语言线索的理解。然而在讨论虚拟三维物体时，因视角差异导致指示手势失去意义，限制了临场感与沟通效果。现有方法采用共享视角与虚拟形象重叠来恢复这些参照，但会造成遮挡和不适，且随着参与者增加而加剧。本文提出一种新的多用户协作共享视角方法，其中虚拟形象无需共位。每位用户以第一人称视角观察工作空间，同时看到其他用户的虚拟形象分布于工作区周围。当某个用户操作物体时，其他人将看到其手臂伸展至该物体位置的画面。SPARC融合了共享朝向并支持非语言交流，最大程度减少遮挡。我们通过用户研究（n=18）探究该新方法对任务绩效与空间感知的影响，实验证据表明SPARC比类真实场景更高效且认知负荷更低。