We present a novel paradigm for human to human asymmetric collaboration. There is a need for people at geographically separate locations to seamlessly collaborate in real time as if they are physically co-located. In our system one user (novice) works in the real world and the other user (expert) works in a parallel virtual world. They are assisted in this task by an Intelligent Agent (IA) with considerable knowledge about the environment. Current tele-collaboration systems deal primarily with collaboration purely in the real or virtual worlds. The use of a combination of virtual and real worlds allows us to leverage the advantages from both the worlds. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.4 [Information Storage and Retrieval]: Systems and Software - Distributed systems; H.5.1 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Multimedia Information Systems - Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities; H.5.3 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: Group and Organization Interfaces Comp...
Ashutosh Morde, Jun Hou, S. Kicha Ganapathy, Carlo