ContextuWall: Peer Collaboration Using (Large) Displays

Abstract

The emerging field of Immersive Analytics investigates how novel display and interaction technologies can enable people to visualise and analyse data and complex information. In this paper, we present ContextuWall, a system for interactive local and remote collaboration using touch and mobile devices as well as displays of various sizes. The system enables groups of users located on different sites to share content to a jointly used virtual desktop which is accessible over a secured network. This virtual desktop can be shown on different large displays simultaneously, taking advantage of their high resolution. To enable users to intuitively share, arrange as well as annotate image content, a purpose-built client software has been built and can easily be adapted with plug-ins for existing data analytics software. We show exemplary use cases and describe the system architecture and its implementation.