Project UNITY: Cross Domain Visualization Collaboration

Abstract : Distributed collaboration research and applications have created the capability for documents, images, whiteboardsand computer displays to be shared by one of more collaborants. Commercial offerings from companies like Google,Adobe, Microsoft, IBM, and others offer a simplistic subset of access protocols and sharing methodologies. Whilethese methods work effectively for their purposes, the Department of Defense and their partners have limited capabilityto use them due to policy and security issues, which are especially stressed during coalition operations. This paperdescribes visualization collaboration issues and solutions for the forthcoming international experiment, project UNITY.The major difference between traditional Relaxed What You See Is What I See systems available today that provide aseparate private workspace is that the UNITY project situates private content in-situ with shared content while ensuringthat the operators understand the difference.