One of my research interests is in the creation of “intelligent” meeting spaces for interaction between people, systems and the environment. The programme is called the “I-Room”.
An I-Room is a meeting space for collaboration and can be provided in virtual worlds such as Second Life and OpenSim. It is designed for brain storming style meetings and as an operations centre. I-Rooms are used in the I-X/I-Room research on intelligent collaborative and task support environments at AIAI, School of Informatics, The University of Edinburgh.
Visit an I-Room now in OSGrid (based on OpenSimulator) [if you do not yet have an OSGrid avatar Join here]:
| Location and URL | Launcher |
|---|---|
| Vue I-Room – Round table for up to 25 people hop://hg.osgrid.org:80/OpenVCE/128/128/20 |
paste “hop” address into viewer address bar |
Videos
- Let Ai Austin take you on a short tour of an I-Room through this YouTube video…
https://www.youtube.com/embed/aBXdohYkT9E?rel=0 - Meeting support to a distributed team developing a multi-media product
- Professional tutoring for Scotch whisky making and tasting
The building and contents are freely available via the Second Life Marketplace, on the Vue region in Second Life, in the OpenVCE region on either the Openvue grid or on the OSGrid (both OpenSimualator-based).
Example I-Rooms for Training, Simulation and Tutorials
- EADS Astrium (Airbus) Homeland Security and Non-combatant Evacuation Scenarios
http://vue.ed.ac.uk/associates/eads/ - Whole of Society Crisis Response Community exercises e.g. with USJFCOM, Army Research Labs, Virginia State, Hampton City and others
http://openvce.net/event-woscr-vcee-2 - Slam Games – multi-media product design I-Room
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFvVvqNtuJc - Virtual World of Whisky – mixed-initiative tutorial I-Room
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22pDiEdG7Vw
I-Rooms are available in Second Life and Opensim. An I-Room provides a two storey building with central area and four work zones, designed for collaborative and brain storming style meetings. An I-Room can be used an a rapidly deployed operations center for example. Plenty of wall space is available for displays and gadgets. Each of the four corners can easily be converted to a small two storey block, or a larger double height block. The I-Room style buildings are used in the I-X/I-Room research on intelligent collaborative and task support environments at AIAI, The University of Edinburgh.
Potential Applications
- Virtual collaboration center
- Business teleconferencing
- Team Meetings for projects, products or reviews
- Product Help Desks
- Design to Product – product lifecycle workflow support
- Environmental, building and plant monitoring center
- Health and safety at work, disability awareness
- Intelligent tutors, guides and greeters
- Active demonstration pavilions
Papers
- Tate, A., Potter, S. and Dalton, J. (2009), I-Room: a Virtual Space for Emergency Response for the Multinational Planning Augmentation Team, Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Knowledge Systems for Coalition Operations (KSCO-2009) (Lawton, J., Patel, J. and Tate. A. eds.), Chilworth Manor, Southampton, UK, 31 March-1 April 2009. [PDF Document]
- Tate, A., Chen-Burger, Y-H., Dalton, J., Potter, S., Richardson, D., Stader, J., Wickler, G., Bankier, I., Walton, C. and William, P.G. (2010) I-Room: A Virtual Space for Intelligent Interaction, IEEE Intelligent Systems, July-August 2010, Vol. 25, No. 4, pp 62-71. IEEE Computer Society.
[PDF Document]
Notes
- Some of the commands for the I-X helper agent running within the “Polycom Phone” in the I-Room are listed at http://openvce.net/iroom-helper (no longer online)
- The I-Room won a prize as an entry in the Federal Virtual Worlds (FCVW) Challenge 2009-2010. [Winners Ribbon (PDF)