Application of graphical representations from video games to amplify co-presence in group visits to virtual houses

Abstract

In real life, the ability that people have of observing the elements of their surrounding space contributes for the sense of presence and social co-presence in that physical space. Digital avatars are often the employed means for providing a similar sense of co-presence in virtual environments. Digital avatars of the users and other co-presence amplification strategies (e.g., co-presence inducing graphical representations) have been extensively studied and employed in multi-player videogames. This paper studies the application of some these strategies to amplify the senseofco-presence of people in virtual group house visits, which is an application scenario with value for real estate industry and participatory design in architecture. For this purpose, a Unity-based collaborative virtual environment was implemented and tested in a user study with 33 participants. The obtained results show that the implemented strategies enrich the sense of co-presence in the virtual environment and trigger interesting collaborative interactions.