We introduce bichronous collaboration in an eXtended Reality (XR) remote collaboration workflow that seamlessly links asynchronous review with synchronous cooperation on physical tasks. The aim is to reduce the misunderstandings and errors that often arise during remote work. The system records a novice's actions and presents them with three spatiotemporal cues-2D, 3D Basic, and 3D Action. An expert can review and provide feedback asynchronously, and also guide the novice synchronously to fix the error. A user study showed that the 3D Action cue allowed experts to identify faults more quickly, enabled novices to resolve problems in less time with higher success rates than a conventional 2D timeline, without increasing cognitive workload or cybersickness. These findings highlight the value of coupling asynchronous insight with synchronous teamwork and position bichronous collaboration as a practical solution for remote troubleshooting, training, and inspection in XR environments.

Augmented Reality (AR) has demonstrated significant potential in task guidance by offering hands-free, context-sensitive instructions. However, effective AR-based task guidance requires maintaining user focus, as lapses in attention can lead to inefficiencies and errors. This paper describes a novel approach for integrating real-time gaze and location tracking to dynamically adapt AR task guidance, adjusting the playback speed accordingly. A user study with 20 participants assessed the effectiveness of gaze-based and locationbased focus detection across four conditions: baseline, gaze-only, location-only, and combined interaction. The results indicate that both gaze-based and location-based guidance significantly reduce error rates and improve task efficiency, however, the simultaneous use of both methods leads to cognitive overload, increased errors, and interaction complexity. Participants found that the adaptive playback speed adjustments helped manage attention. These findings highlight the importance of balancing adaptive cues in AR task guidance to optimize user performance without overwhelming cognitive resources.

Representing emotion in collaborative Virtual Reality (VR) environments is an emerging topic, as VR can enable humans to express augmented emotions beyond their normal abilities. This research explores how emotion can be represented in collaborative VR beyond facial expressions. We developed a virtual system that communicates emotion using three sensory modalities (textual, auditory and visual) through two spatiotemporal representations (human-form avatar and superpower). We show real-time emotion through a natural avatar and objectify emotion states into superpower phenomena in in-situ environments for time periods. We incorporated subjective, physiological and behavioural measures to evaluate emotion in an asynchronous VR collaboration scenario. The results suggested that showing emotions through the avatar and superpower augmentations (audio-visual) provided the best immersive VR experience, where users were more aroused, and the positive emotion felt more dominating. We also found that understanding emotion requires easy and relatable visuals that people commonly acknowledge, whereas arousing emotion requires a change of environmental contexts to indicate different states. We provide design insights for using multisensory modalities in empathic VR systems to address the lack of a standardised representation of emotion in collaborative VR.

Parallel view is a technique that allows a VR user to see multiple locations at a time. It enables the user to control several remote or virtual body parts while seeing parallel views to solve synchronous tasks. However, these techniques only explored the benefits and drawbacks of a user performing different tasks. In this paper, we explored enhancements on a singular or asynchronous task by utilizing information obtained in parallel views. We developed three prototypes where parallel views are fixed, moving in symmetric order, or following the user's eye gaze. We conducted a user study to compare each prototype against traditional VR (without parallel views) in three types of tasks: object search and interaction tasks in a 1) simple environment and 2) complex environment, and 3) object distances estimation task. We found parallel views improved multi-embodiment while each technique helped different tasks. No parallel view provided a clean interface, thus improving spatial presence, mental effort, and user performance. However, participants' feedback highlighted potential usefulness and a lower physical effort by using parallel views to solve complicated tasks.

In this paper, we present a novel collaboration tool, OmniGlobeVR, which is an asymmetric system that supports communication and collaboration between a VR user (occupant) and multiple non-VR users (designers) across the virtual and physical platform. OmniGlobeVR allows designer(s) to explore the VR space from any point of view using two view modes: a 360° first-person mode and a third-person mode. In addition, a shared gaze awareness cue is provided to further enhance communication between the occupant and the designer(s). Finally, the system has a face window feature that allows designer(s) to share their facial expressions and upper body view with the occupant for exchanging and expressing information using nonverbal cues. We conducted a user study to evaluate the OmniGlobeVR, comparing three conditions: (1) first-person mode with the face window, (2) first-person mode with a solid window, and (3) third-person mode with the face window. We found that the first-person mode with the face window required significantly less mental effort, and provided better spatial presence, usability, and understanding of the partner's focus. We discuss the design implications of these results and directions for future research.

Remote Collaboration using Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) has recently become a popular way for people from different places to work together. Local workers can collaborate with remote helpers by sharing 360-degree live video or 3D virtual reconstruction of their surroundings. However, each of these techniques has benefits and drawbacks. In this paper we explore mixing 360 video and 3D reconstruction together for remote collaboration, by preserving benefits of both systems while reducing drawbacks of each. We developed a hybrid prototype and conducted user study to compare benefits and problems of using 360 or 3D alone to clarify the needs for mixing the two, and also to evaluate the prototype system. We found participants performed significantly better on collaborative search tasks in 360 and felt higher social presence, yet 3D also showed potential to complement. Participant feedback collected after trying our hybrid system provided directions for improvement.

We propose enhancing live 360 panorama-based Mixed Reality (MR) remote collaboration through supporting visual annotation cues. Prior work on live 360 panorama-based collaboration used MR visualization to overlay visual cues, such as view frames and virtual hands, yet they were not registered onto the shared physical workspace, hence had limitations in accuracy for pointing or marking objects. Our prototype system uses spatial mapping and tracking feature of an Augmented Reality head-mounted display to show visual annotation cues accurately registered onto the physical environment. We describe the design and implementation details of our prototype system, and discuss on how such feature could help improve MR remote collaboration.

Mixed Reality (MR) remote collaboration provides an enhanced immersive experience where a remote user can provide verbal and nonverbal assistance to a local user to increase the efficiency and performance of the collaboration. This is usually achieved by sharing the local user's environment through live 360 video or a 3D scene, and using visual cues to gesture or point at real objects allowing for better understanding and collaborative task performance. While most of prior work used one of the methods to capture the surrounding environment, there may be situations where users have to choose between using 360 panoramas or 3D scene reconstruction to collaborate, as each have unique benefits and limitations. In this paper we designed a prototype system that combines 360 panoramas into a 3D scene to introduce a novel way for users to interact and collaborate with each other. We evaluated the prototype through a user study which compared the usability and performance of our proposed approach to live 360 video collaborative system, and we found that participants enjoyed using different ways to access the local user's environment although it took them longer time to learn to use our system. We also collected subjective feedback for future improvements and provide directions for future research.

Sharing and watching live 360 panorama video is available on modern social networking platforms, yet the communication is often a passive one-directional experience. This research investigates how to further improve live 360 panorama based remote collaborative experiences by adding Mixed Reality (MR) cues. SharedSphere is a wearable MR remote collaboration system that enriches a live captured immersive panorama based collaboration through MR visualisation of non-verbal communication cues (e.g., view awareness and gestures cues). We describe the design and implementation details of the prototype system, and report on a user study investigating how MR live panorama sharing affects the user's collaborative experience. The results showed that providing view independence through sharing live panorama enhances co-presence in collaboration, and the MR cues help users understanding each other. Based on the study results we discuss design implications and future research direction.

This paper presents our new Virtual Reality (VR) interactive visualization techniques to assist users querying large image sets. The VR system allows users to query a set of images on four different filters such as locations and keywords. The goal is to investigate if a VR platform is preferred over a non-VR platform for viewing and querying large image sets. We employed an HTC Vive and a traditional desktop screen to represent VR and non-VR platforms. We found users preferred the VR platform over the traditional desktop screen.