The turn to virtual worlds and spatial approaches generally has emerged from work in HCI and CSCW on the use of spatial metaphors and techniques to represent information and action in electronic systems. This work has its roots in the use of a rooms metaphor to allow the presentation of information [Henderson, 1985]. From
these early spatial approaches we have seen concepts of spatial arrangement exploited in the development of desktop conferencing systems such as Cruiser [Root, 1988] and more generally in the work of Mediaspaces [Gaver, 1992].