hi,

--- Chris Greenhalgh wrote:
Option 3: introduce further relationships between spaces and/or intenal 
structure within spaces (e.g. 'lobby', incorporating a set of 'tables')  and
manage audio in an overlapping but volume-managed way => e.g.  'adjacent' spaces
receive audio but play it at a much reduced level  (e.g. 5%) => if your local
space is quiet you can hear that stuff is  going on 'nearby', but conversation
in your local space is easily  attended to as primary.
--- end of quote ---

i like this option very much, too, and was thinking along these same lines. i
believe what most (some?) of us want to do is emulate being in a real lobby,
which is what option 3 tries to emulate. i.e., you can hear those close to you
but can't hear/understand those further away from you. as in a real lobby, while
talking in your own group, although you can't hear others, you can see them. and
that's how we operate socially. if i see someone across the room, i can go over
to that person and be in his/her audio space. or i could try waving frantically
:-) but end up getting quite a few others' attention as well. and occasionally,
there might be an announcement over the PA, but that's another issue.

as chris stated, it's a navigation issue as well. i could envision a pallette of
vic thumbnails that correspond to actual geographic groups in the lobby. if i
see someone in the lobby in another group, i could drag my own thumbnail to that
group and be in that conversation. and everyone else could do the same. from a
user interface point of view i think that would work great: i use a virtual
space to navigate in that has properties identical to the real world, i.e., i
can see all, but not hear all, but i can walk anywhere i can see.

so, technically (which i'm not dealing with here) there are audio management
issues, navigation issues, and client/server management of tracking where
everyone is issues. but i know a lot of the pieces already exist in scientific
and gaming software, so it seems feasible.

now, if we want to make it a 3D environment as well...

-gurcharan

PS Chris: didn't get a chance to check your URLs, so maybe these ideas are
already covered there?

===========================
Gurcharan S. Khanna
Associate Director
Research Computing
Dartmouth College
gkhanna@dartmouth.edu
office: 603-646-1644
http://research.dartmouth.edu/
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~rc
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~gkhanna