Multi-user Collaboration on Complex Data in Virtual and Augmented Reality

With increasing task and system complexity, it becomes necessary to support workers, e.g. performing repair tasks, from a remote location. Current approaches utilize images or a video stream combined with annotations and speech to allow collaboration with remote users. We propose a technique that gives the remote supporter the ability to see a high fidelity point cloud of a real world object in Virtual Reality (VR). The VR user can indicate points of interest via a laser pointer. The local worker sees these indications on top of the real object with an Augmented Reality (AR) headset. A preliminary user study shows that the proposed method is faster and less error-prone regarding the comprehension of the object and the communication between the users. In addition to that, the system has a higher usability. This work shows that even non-virtual, collaborative tasks can be supported by new forms of user interaction using different technologies like VR and AR.