Co-actuated table creating a sense of co-presence in shared virtual environments

These few years an issue such as trust building in virtual community has been discussed in various places, as the Internet has penetrated through our daily lives. In order to resolve the issue, co-creative communication should be required. This paper describes a design strategy and prototype system for generating a co-existing space leading to co-creative communication between remote locales. Authors invent a conceptual idea "inter-real virtual space", which reflects the situation in remote locale, and which plays a role as an interface space bridging between remote locales. According to this idea, authors implement a co-actuated table interface, the turn-disk of which synchronizes with virtual disk and remote disk in real time as well as virtual avatar of remote person appears. Through evaluation of the interface system, "inter-real virtual space" which corresponds to real situation including bodily action in real space is shared and supports mutual interaction at both locales, and indicates its availability for enhancing a sense of co-presence.