PNNL-13501 - Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Study Control Number: PN98012/1258
Collaborative Environments for Large Information Spaces
Ryan Hohimer, Richard May
A true collaboration happens when multiple people interact in such a way as to understand each other, advance each
other’s knowledge, and make progress toward sound decisions. This research project developed an “information space”
where a spatial understanding of the collaborators and the electronic and physical information that they work with was
formed.
Project Description
The purpose of this project was to develop a nextgeneration
environment for information exploration.
Integration of both electronic and physical information
was used to build a collaborative interaction space of
people and data. Applications with dynamic electronic
data, and users providing dynamic physical interaction
data brought together prior research in human interaction
spaces. Through experimental efforts with Jini
technologies (JavaSpaces), new understandings of HIspace
network communications were attained. Prototype
software for network communication between a HI-space
service and client was written.
Introduction
The objective of this effort was to prototype a
collaborative environment by merging HI-space
technology and a shared application by implementing a
communications protocol between them. Previously
serial mouse events were emulated by the HI-space and
sent to an application computer. This mouse emulation
method did not lend itself to networked or distributed or
shared applications.
Although network latency issues discovered by
experimenting with Jini’s JavaSpaces deterred further
development of JavaSpaces as an architecture for this
effort, using Jini distributed computing environment
technologies to discover and establish direct TCP/IP
connections between HI-spaces is an architecture with
promise.
Results and Accomplishments
A direct client/server shared application was prototyped
to display the spatial orientation of people interacting in a
remote HI-space. The client graphical user interface
156 FY 2000 Laboratory Directed Research and Development Annual Report
(Figure 1) demonstrates that remote users in a HI-space
(Figure 2) can be depicted locally and the physical and
electronic data they work with can be shown as well.
Figure 1. Projection of a client graphical user interface
Figure 2. Remote users in a HI-space environment