New generation tools to offshore engineering: Collaborative immersive visualization environments

New communications technologies have opened up opportunities for collaborative relationships. There are needs to share information in order to remain current in the specialized technologies. Large complex projects as offshore projects require multiple expertise and Collaborative Immersive Visualization Environments (CIVE) provide mechanisms to share theses expertise and information. So, oil companies are now adopting CIVE as the new productive generation tools to analyze exploration and production data. There are several solutions at this marketplace. This paper brings a discussion about the critical technical factors that promote the immersion and affects directly in the cost of system. So, it is discussed several technological aspects of CIVE as projection technology, the application of nonconventional I/O devices, number of audience, and so on.