In this paper, we investigated the effect of relative difference between the virtual object and tangible prop in its size and shape in terms of usability. We have found the obvious fact that in general that manipulation is more efficient with equally sized/shaped prop and virtual objects. In addition, when decoupled, the size difference factor did not matter. While an additional experiment (in progress) is needed to confirm the true effect of shape difference, we posit that prop design should concentrate on representing the critical shape features for a given class of objects the prop is to represent. Humans are adept at recognizing and identifying objects even if there are shown at different scales and in different angles. This ability, called ldquoconstancyrdquo is weaker in the dimension of shapes, e.g. compared to sizes, which is another reason to suspect shape to be a more critical factor for effective prop design. Another significant factor, in the design of props (not treated in this paper) is the prop to virtual object alignment (which can affect the task performance in terms of finding and feeling for a stable grasp). For instance, possible choices for spatially registering a prop to a virtual object (or vice versa) can be about their respective center of gravity, about the chosen surface, etc. Future experiments and prop design method will have to take this into account as well.

We address the problem of teleoperating a mobile robot using shared autonomy: an on-board controller performs obstacle avoidance while the operator uses the manipulandum of a haptic probe to designate the desired speed and rate of turn. Sensors on the robot are used to measure obstacle range information. We describe a strategy to convert such range information into forces, which are reflected to the operator's hand, via the haptic probe. This haptic information provides feedback to the operator in addition to imagery from a front-facing camera mounted on the mobile robot. Extensive experiments with a user population show that the added haptic feedback significantly improves operator performance in several ways (reduced collisions, increased minimum distance between the robot and obstacles) without a significant increase in navigation time.

In this paper, we present "PODIUM (POstech Distributed virtual Music environment)", a distributed virtual environment that allows users to participate in a shared space and play music with other participants in a collaborative manner. In addition to playing virtual instruments, users can communicate and interact in various ways to enhance the collaboration and, thus, the quality of the music played together. Musical messages are generated note by note through interaction with the keyboard, mouse, and other devices, and transmitted through an IP-multicasting network among participants. In addition to such note-level information, additional messages for visualization, and interaction are supported. Real world based visualization has been chosen, against, for instance, abstract music world based visualization, to promote "co-presence" (e.g. recognize and interact with other players), which is deemed important for collaborative music production. In addition to the entertainment purpose, we hope that DVME will find great use in casual practice sessions for even professional performers/orchestras/bands.Since even a slight interruption in the flow of the music or out - of-synch graphics and sound would dramatically decrease utility of the system, we employ various techniques to minimize the network delay. An adapted server-client architecture and UDP' s are used to ensure fast packet deliveries and reduce the data bottleneck problem. Time-critical messages such as MIDI messages are multicasted among clients, and the less time-critical and infrequently updated messages are sent through the server. Predefined animations of avatars are invoked by interpreting the musical messages. Using the latest graphics and sound processing hardware, and by maintaining an appropriate scene complexity, and a frame rate sufficiently higher than the fastest note duration, the time constraint for graphics and sound synchronization can be met. However, we expect the network delay could cause considerable problems when the system is scaled up for many users and processing simultaneous notes (for harmony). To assess the scalability, we carried out a performance analysis of our system model to derive the maximum number of simultaneous participants. For example, according to our data, about 50 participants should be able to play together without significant disruption, each using one track with five simultaneous notes and for playing a musical piece at a speed of 16 ticks per second in a typical PC/LAN environment.In hopes of enhancing the feeling of "co-presence" among participants, a simple sound localization technique is used to compute panning and relative volumes from positions and orientations of participants. This reduced sound localization model is used also in order to minimize the computational cost and the network traffic. Participants can send predefined messages by interacting with the keyboard, mouse, and other input devices. All of the predefined messages are mapped into simple avatar motions, such as playing various types of instruments (players), making applause (audience), and conducting gestures (conductors). We believe that for coordinated music performance, indirect interaction will be the main interaction method, for example, exchanging particular gestures, signals, and voice commands to synchronize music, confirming and reminding expression of the upcoming portion of the music, and just exchanging glances to enjoy each others' emotion. In this view, there would be mainly three groups of participants: conductor, players, and the audience, playing different roles, but creating co-presence together through mutual recognition. We ran a simple experiment comparing the music performance of two groups of participants, one provided with co-presence cues and the other without, and found no performance edge by the group with the co-presence cues. Such a result can serve as one guideline for building music-related VR applications.