Porthole: A Decoupled HTML5 Interface Generator For Virtual Environments

This thesis presents Porthole, a framework that helps applications developers to create user interfaces to Virtual Environment (VE). The goal is to enable interaction with VE systems using smartphones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers. With Porthole, messaging and streaming management is transparent to VE applications developers: any device that has a HTML5 enabled browser can connect to a virtual environment, receive a GUI tailored on its specifications, and manage application cameras and parameters. The developers can enable Porthole service just by providing a XML Interfaces Description (XID) (and, optionally, a CSS file for changing client interface style). The end users of Virtual Environments, such as CAVE2TM, can, then, use handheld devices to interact with VE applications. Moreover, end users can employ the same devices for both local and remote interaction, without the need of ad-hoc client applications. Porthole addresses earlier work limitations by proposing a novel HCI model that exploits browsers as a mean of interaction with VE systems. State of art works, instead, present application or OS specific solutions. Finally, Porthole suggests a new concept of low-cost remote collaboration, with respect to Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) model proposed in earlier work in this research area.