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  "howToCite": "Cite the paper, not this file: use 'citation' or the ready-made 'bibtex' (DOI where given) and name every author. Attribute paraphrase to the paper's findings, and use quotation marks only for 'quote' text."
 },
 "name": "VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings",
 "author": [
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Brennan Jones"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Yaying Zhang"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "name": "Priscilla Wong"
  },
  {
   "@type": "Person",
   "@id": "https://seanrintel.com/#sean-rintel",
   "name": "Sean Rintel",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/",
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    "https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xc25GRgAAAAJ",
    "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102369654",
    "https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/people/serintel/",
    "https://www.linkedin.com/in/seanrintel"
   ]
  }
 ],
 "datePublished": "2020-04",
 "doi": "10.1145/3334480.3382820",
 "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html",
 "citation": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820",
 "bibtex": "@inproceedings{jones2020vroom,\nauthor = {Jones, Brennan and Zhang, Yaying and Priscilla Wong and Rintel, Sean},\ntitle = {VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings},\norganization = {ACM},\nbooktitle = {CHI 2020},\nyear = {2020},\nmonth = {April},\nurl = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820},\nnote = {CHI 2020 Extended Abstracts},\ndoi = {10.1145/3334480.3382820},\n}",
 "abstract": "Telepresence robots allow remote users to freely explore a space they are not in, and provide a physical embodiment in that space. However, they lack a compelling representation of the remote user in the local space. We present VROOM (Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings), a two-way system for exploring how to improve the social experience of robotic telepresence. For the local user, an augmented-reality (AR) interface shows a life-size avatar of the remote user overlaid on a telepresence robot. For the remote user, a head-mounted virtual-reality (VR) interface presents an immersive 360° view of the local space with mobile autonomy. The VR system tracks the remote user’s head pose and hand movements, which are applied to the avatar. This allows the local user to see the remote’s head direction and hand gestures, and the remote user to identify with the robot as an identifiable embodiment of self.",
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   "url": "https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820",
   "label": "DOI (Free Access)"
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   "kind": "freeAccess",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.pdf",
   "label": "Author's Copy"
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 ],
 "fullTextAvailable": true,
 "takeaway": "Telepresence robots let remote people roam a space but show little body language. A life-size avatar overlaid on the robot, seen through AR glasses, could show where the remote person looks and points. A VR headset gives them a live all-round view, with their avatar's body seen in first person.",
 "whyItMatters": {
  "stateOfTheArt": {
   "summary": "Telepresence robots let remote users move around a space and give them a physical presence there, but they show the remote person only on a small 2D screen. AR avatars convey gestures but cannot roam.",
   "quote": "However, they lack a compelling representation of the remote user in the local space.",
   "location": "Abstract, p. 1"
  },
  "contribution": {
   "summary": "Earlier mixed-reality work attached a miniature avatar to a 360° camera. The authors attach a life-size avatar to a telepresence robot instead, so the remote person can move through the space and keeps a physical presence that people without a headset can also see.",
   "quote": "how to combine robotic telepresence with mixed-reality avatars to provide the best of both worlds to each endpoint of a video-call experience?",
   "location": "§Introduction, p. 2"
  },
  "whoCares": {
   "summary": "Designers and researchers of telepresence and mixed-reality collaboration. The authors note that remote collaboration technologies can include people who would otherwise be left out, such as people with disabilities who cannot leave home or who cannot afford to travel."
  }
 },
 "researchQuestions": [
  "How to combine robotic telepresence with mixed-reality avatars to provide the best of both worlds to each endpoint of a video-call experience?"
 ],
 "concepts": [
  {
   "term": "Asymmetries of video communication",
   "definition": "Differences between what remote and local people can see, control and do. A remote caller usually cannot steer their own view of the room, for example.",
   "quote": "A remote user[’s] lack of ability to control their view can lead to frustration and provide an unequal experience",
   "location": "§Background, pp. 2–3"
  },
  {
   "term": "Telepresence robot",
   "definition": "A remotely driven robot with a screen, speakers, microphone and camera that lets a remote user move around and interact in another space.",
   "quote": "they give remote users the ability to freely explore an environment that they are not physically in",
   "location": "§Background, p. 3"
  },
  {
   "term": "Physical embodiment",
   "definition": "What the robot's physical presence gives the remote user:",
   "quote": "thus giving them a place in that environment, making that space belong to them",
   "location": "§Background, p. 3"
  },
  {
   "term": "Avatar overlay",
   "definition": "A life-size avatar of the remote user, built from a photo of their face and animated by their head and hand movements, shown on top of the robot to local users wearing AR headsets.",
   "quote": "the mouth flaps in time with speech, and blink and idle animations are included to give the avatar some natural movement",
   "location": "§Local Space, p. 4"
  }
 ],
 "method": {
  "design": "System design and implementation, illustrated with a usage scenario. No user study is reported. A comparison with standard robotic telepresence is left for a future paper.",
  "prototype": "VROOM, a two-way system. In the local space, people wearing a Microsoft HoloLens (version 1) augmented-reality headset see a life-size avatar of the remote person overlaid on a BeamPro telepresence robot. Printed markers on the robot keep the avatar in place. The avatar's face is made from a photo of the remote person. Its head turns as theirs does, its mouth moves when they speak, its arms follow their hand controllers, and it walks when the robot drives. In the remote space, the remote person wears an HP Windows Mixed Reality virtual-reality headset showing live 360° video from a RICOH Theta V camera on top of the robot. They see their own avatar body when they look down or move their hands, and drive the robot with the controller thumbsticks. Both ends run Unity applications.",
  "prototypeFigure": 1,
  "setting": "A local space where the activity takes place, and a remote space from which one person joins through the robot.",
  "analysis": "Not applicable (system description)."
 },
 "findings": [
  {
   "headline": "Gaze and pointing carry over.",
   "summary": "Because the avatar's head and hands follow the remote user's, people on site can see where the remote person is looking and what they are pointing at. The authors' usage scenario imagines a design director in Seattle moving around her team's studio in Shanghai.",
   "quote": "Her colleagues, each wearing a HoloLens, can see her avatar present in any room, moving around the building, and if they call to her they can see her look back over her shoulder.",
   "location": "§Usage Scenario, p. 5",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-susage-scenario-p-5",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820 (§Usage Scenario, p. 5)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "One avatar, two audiences.",
   "summary": "The avatar is designed for both ends. On site, it should make the absent colleague feel there. At home, seeing one's own avatar body in the live 360° view should build a sense of being on site.",
   "quote": "This full-body avatar is meant to heighten the local user[’s] sense that the remote user is present in the space with them.",
   "location": "§Local Space, p. 4",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-slocal-space-p-4",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820 (§Local Space, p. 4)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Simple tracking was enough for now.",
   "summary": "Markers on the front and back of the robot were enough to keep the avatar facing the same way as the robot in this first version, though smoother tracking may need more markers.",
   "quote": "This worked reasonably well for this first version, but future versions might include more markers for smoother tracking.",
   "location": "§Local Space, p. 5",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-slocal-space-p-5",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820 (§Local Space, p. 5)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "The robot's screen could go.",
   "summary": "A future version could use any driveable robot with a 360° camera on a pole at head height. The authors kept the robot's screen only so that VROOM could later be compared with standard robotic telepresence.",
   "quote": "the screen would be unnecessary in a space where all local users wore a headset",
   "location": "§Local Space, p. 5",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-slocal-space-p-5-2",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820 (§Local Space, p. 5)"
  },
  {
   "headline": "Aimed at a known gap.",
   "summary": "Prior work found that 360° video gives remote people a wider, more immersive view but no easy way to gesture or show where they are looking. VROOM's avatar is the authors' attempt to fill that gap, not yet evaluated.",
   "quote": "simply adding a larger field of view does not provide an easy way of gesturing to other users or indicating which direction they are looking in the remote space",
   "location": "§Background, p. 3",
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-sbackground-p-3",
   "cite": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820 (§Background, p. 3)"
  }
 ],
 "questions": [
  {
   "question": "How can a telepresence robot show the remote person's body language?",
   "answer": "One untested approach is to overlay an avatar of the remote person on the robot. In the authors' system, VROOM, people on site wearing an augmented reality headset see a life-size avatar on the robot. Its head and hands follow the remote user's, showing where they look and point.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§Usage Scenario, p. 5",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-susage-scenario-p-5"
    },
    {
     "location": "§Local Space, p. 4",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-slocal-space-p-4"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Is a wider camera view enough for remote people to take part?",
   "answer": "Not on its own. Prior work found that 360° video gives a more immersive view but no easy way to gesture or show where one is looking. The authors' system aims to add both through an avatar that people on site can see.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§Background, p. 3",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-sbackground-p-3"
    }
   ]
  },
  {
   "question": "Does an avatar on a telepresence robot improve remote collaboration?",
   "answer": "The authors do not yet know. This paper describes the system and a usage scenario. How it affects social and spatial presence compared with standard robotic telepresence is future work.",
   "source": "Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820",
   "basedOn": [
    {
     "location": "§Local Space, p. 5",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-slocal-space-p-5-2"
    },
    {
     "location": "§Background, p. 3",
     "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.html#at-sbackground-p-3"
    }
   ]
  }
 ],
 "cites": [
  {
   "url": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/hybrid-meetings-in-the-modern-workplace-stories-of-success-and-failure.html",
   "title": "Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure",
   "location": "p. 9"
  }
 ],
 "quantitative": [],
 "implications": [
  {
   "summary": "A future version could drop the robot's screen and use any driveable robot with a 360° camera on a pole reaching head height."
  },
  {
   "summary": "VROOM could be extended with a shared mixed-reality workspace where remote and local users place and handle virtual objects, for uses such as home planning or remote training.",
   "quote": "we are interested in providing the local and remote users with a shared mixed-reality workspace",
   "location": "§Future Work, p. 6"
  }
 ],
 "limitations": [
  {
   "summary": "No evaluation is reported. The comparison with standard robotic telepresence is left to a future paper.",
   "quote": "to be reported in a future paper",
   "location": "§Local Space, p. 5"
  },
  {
   "summary": "Avatar tracking used only front and rear markers, and smoother tracking may need more."
  },
  {
   "summary": "Only one local and one remote user were illustrated. Multiple users, remote users seeing each other's avatars, and lower-cost robots remain to be explored."
  }
 ],
 "figures": [
  {
   "src": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/figures/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings/fig-1.webp",
   "caption": "Figure 1: An overview of the VROOM system.",
   "alt": "VROOM: a remote user in a VR headset drives a telepresence robot via 360° video, and a local user in AR glasses sees the remote user's life-size avatar overlaid on the robot.",
   "location": "Figure 1, p. 2",
   "credit": "Figure 1 from Brennan Jones, Yaying Zhang, Priscilla Wong, and Sean Rintel. 2020. VROOM: Virtual Robot Overlay for Online Meetings. CHI 2020. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3382820"
  }
 ],
 "pageNumbersReferTo": "https://seanrintel.com/publications/vroom-virtual-robot-overlay-for-online-meetings.pdf",
 "verified": "2026-10-25",
 "studyFigure": {
  "about": "The opening figure on this paper's page, made for the site with AI assistance from this verified brief. It is not the paper's own figure. Evidence entries index this file's quantitative, findings and limitations arrays.",
  "study": {
   "kind": "single",
   "heading": "The paper",
   "summary": "A short paper describing the design and build of VROOM, a two-way telepresence system, illustrated with a usage scenario. No user study is reported.",
   "steps": [
    {
     "label": "A known gap",
     "detail": "Prior work found that 360° video gives remote people a wider view but no easy way to gesture or show where they look."
    },
    {
     "label": "System design",
     "detail": "The authors combined a telepresence robot with mixed reality avatars and built a working version."
    },
    {
     "label": "Usage scenario",
     "detail": "A design director in Seattle moves around her team's studio in Shanghai through the robot."
    },
    {
     "label": "Not yet tested",
     "detail": "A comparison with standard robotic telepresence is left for a future paper."
    }
   ]
  },
  "tool": {
   "heading": "The system",
   "steps": [
    {
     "title": "Overlay an avatar",
     "text": "People on site wearing HoloLens augmented reality headsets see a life-size avatar of the remote person on the telepresence robot.",
     "part": true
    },
    {
     "title": "Keep it in place",
     "text": "Printed markers on the front and back of the robot anchor the avatar to it."
    },
    {
     "title": "Mirror the remote person",
     "text": "The avatar copies the remote person's movements as they happen.",
     "fields": [
      "head turns",
      "mouth moves with speech",
      "arms follow hand controllers",
      "walks when the robot drives"
     ],
     "part": true
    },
    {
     "title": "Show the remote view",
     "text": "The remote person wears a virtual reality headset showing live 360° video from a camera on top of the robot."
    },
    {
     "title": "See and drive",
     "text": "The remote person sees the avatar's body when looking down, and drives the robot with the controller thumbsticks.",
     "part": true
    }
   ],
   "note": "The avatar's face is made from a photo of the remote person."
  },
  "findings": {
   "heading": "What the paper proposes",
   "legend": null,
   "stages": [
    {
     "title": "For people on site",
     "sub": "design aims, not yet tested with users",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "The paper proposes that the avatar shows on-site people where the remote person looks and points.",
       "detail": "In the usage scenario, colleagues call to the remote director and see her look back over her shoulder.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[0]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "The paper proposes that the avatar should make an absent colleague feel present on site.",
       "detail": "No evaluation of this or any other aim is reported.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[1]",
        "limitations[0]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    },
    {
     "title": "For the remote person",
     "sub": "design aims, not yet tested with users",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "The paper proposes that seeing one's own avatar body can build a sense of being on site.",
       "detail": "The remote person sees the avatar's body in the live 360° view when looking down or moving their hands.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[1]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    },
    {
     "title": "Building it",
     "sub": "notes on the first version",
     "items": [
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "In this first version, front and back markers kept the avatar facing the robot's way.",
       "detail": "The authors say smoother tracking may need more markers.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[2]",
        "limitations[1]"
       ]
      },
      {
       "dir": "none",
       "text": "The paper suggests a future version could drop the robot's screen.",
       "detail": "Any driveable robot with a 360° camera on a pole at head height could work. The screen was kept only for a later comparison.",
       "evidence": [
        "findings[3]"
       ]
      }
     ]
    }
   ]
  },
  "keyTerm": [
   "physical embodiment",
   "asymmetries"
  ],
  "takeaway": "A life-size avatar overlaid on a telepresence robot's physical embodiment may ease the asymmetries of video communication, letting remote people show gaze and gestures as they move about. A live all-round view could help them feel on site."
 }
}