An Examination of Presence and Engagement in Video Conferencing Systems and Virtual Environments

Abstract

Extended Reality (XR) is an upcoming field of technology that has garnered interest from researchers in the last few decades. This increased interest is largely due to the development of powerful hardware like the Microsoft HoloLens, Oculus Quest and the Magic Leap. Several companies like Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Apple and Nvidia are touting the rise of a new "metaverse'' - the next generation of the internet, that will blur the lines between physical and virtual presence. This thesis explores the use of web-based XR platforms in Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) as an alternative to contemporary video conferencing tools.

We conducted a user study with 15 subjects to evaluate web-based XR platforms (Mozilla Hubs) with video conferencing (Zoom) and examined subject attention and success in remote collaborative tasks. We also proposed a new system design to support embodied interactions in XR. This system was tested by measuring the communication latency between two collaborators separated by varying distances. Our system performance evaluation suggests the feasibility of support embodied interactions, with a minimal latency of 120ms across a distance of 4700 miles.