The COVEN project: Exploring applicative, technical, and usage dimensions of collaborative virtual environments

COVEN (Collaborative Virtual Environments) is a European project that seeks to develop a comprehensive approach to the issues in the development of co llaborative virtual environment (CVE) technology. COVEN brings together twe lve academic and industrial partners with a wide range of expertise in CSCW , networked VR, computer graphics, human factors, HCI, and telecommunicatio ns infrastructures. After two years of work, we are presenting the main fea tures of our approach and results, our driving applications, the main compo nents of our technical investigations, and our experimental activities. Wit h different citizen and professional application scenarios as driving force s, COVEN is exploring the requirements and supporting techniques for collab orative interaction in scalable CVEs. Technical results are being integrate d in an enriched networked VR platform based on the dVS and DIVE systems. T aking advantage of a dedicated Europe-wide ISDN and ATM network infrastruct ure, a large component of the project is a trial and experimentation activi ty that should allow a comprehensive understanding of the network requireme nts of these systems as well as their usability issues and human factors as pects.