CrossAtlas: Evaluating Projection Techniques for Spatial Referencing in Cross-Reality Collaboration

2026-07-30

AI Summary

In cross-reality collaboration, disparities in view projection between immersive (VR) and desktop (PC) users hinder spatial referencing, impairing shared understanding and communication efficiency. This work proposes CrossAtlas, a synchronous collaboration platform that presents the first systematic comparison of planar projection—encompassing three variants—and spherical equirectangular projection across layouts with varying curvatures. Through controlled experiments and multidimensional evaluation, the study demonstrates that spherical projection consistently outperforms planar methods across most scenarios, exhibiting robustness across diverse object arrangements. This approach significantly enhances spatial perception accuracy, collaborative efficiency, and overall user experience.

Abstract

Cross-reality collaboration increasingly connects immersive and desktop users within synchronized workspaces, yet little is known about how bidirectional projection techniques between immersive 3D layouts and desktop 2D views influence communication. Spatial referencing depends on shared spatial understanding, but different mappings preserve and distort geometric relationships in different ways, altering perceived adjacency, orientation, and coverage across collaborators' views. We present CrossAtlas, a synchronized PC-VR collaboration platform that integrates multiple bidirectional projection techniques, including three planar projection variants and equirectangular, a spherical projection variant, across layouts of varying curvature. In a controlled study with 24 dyads, collaborators completed spatial referencing tasks under different projection-layout conditions while we collected performance and subjective measures. Our results show that projection choice strongly shaped collaboration, with the spherical variant often outperforming planar projections and remaining robust across object layouts.

Problem

• cross-reality collaboration
• spatial referencing
• projection techniques
• shared spatial understanding
• bidirectional projection

Innovation

• cross-reality collaboration
• bidirectional projection
• spatial referencing
• spherical projection
• immersive-desktop interaction