EGO-EXO: A Cooperative Manipulation Technique with Automatic Viewpoint Control

Cooperative manipulation techniques allow multiple users to interact with an object together at the same time. This kind of collaboration allow users to solve complex tasks that would be difficult for a single user to perform. The EGOEXO technique proposed in this paper places two collaborating users in asymmetric viewpoint positions. It was developed from the premise that simultaneous control over navigation and manipulation by the user can increase the interaction complexity. Our technique allows one of the users to follow the object being manipulated automatically while the other stays in a fixed position farther away. Our technique separates the degrees of freedom between the two users, matching the degrees to the most suitable viewpoints. Each user interacts with objects using complimentary manipulation techniques, which were chosen based on which degrees they control. EGO-EXO is implemented and evaluated through a user study to test how well it performs when compared to a similar technique when both user viewpoints are fixed.