I absolutely agree. I'm very much a whiteboard hand-wavier guy. I explain with gestures as much as I do with the actual drawing (might be an Italian thing too).
That said, this "pancake" problem reminded me of the old Wii head-tracking project.[1] There might be an interesting hybrid opportunity with that idea and 3d avatars. I feel like the head-tracking hack never really took off because it only worked as a solo experience. But since remote work is mostly us all individually sitting at a computer I could see it working better.
Combine this idea with a large dedicated monitor/tv and now you have something that would literally just feel like a window/portal to the person you're talking to.
I'd expect conventional live footage of whiteboard hand-waving to wildly outdo VR for the entire foreseeable future. If you need two guys hand-waving in different rooms, focus the extra tech on the whiteboards, to somehow merge their content.
plug: this is along the lines of our thinking, at ShareTheBoard. rather than kill the whiteboard with VR, we use vision to give it new tricks.
step 1 is real-time content digitization and obstacle avoidance (available now). step n involves synchronizing cameras and projectors for a deviceless AR experience - true "remote whiteboarding." we've completed this in laboratory conditions, hope to release it next year.
Is it possible to use this with Teams or Zoom or does everyone need a new app? This seems like an ideal plug-in or app to use with those since it's essentially just a "filter" app from the presenter's side. Using your app as the video source seems like it'd be straightforward to do.
Indeed, most of our users simply open our app, then use Teams/Zoom/Meet to share that tab using the built-in screen-share. That gives you content legibility but none of the other benefits: by hitting our meeting link (in browser: no sign-up/download needed), all viewers can also save board contents at any time and even add digital content of their own.
Can't do that second part "through" videoconferencing apps - not without a deeper integration (read: participation with the companies in question). It's on our list of possible developments but will require dancing partners on the other side.
That said, this "pancake" problem reminded me of the old Wii head-tracking project.[1] There might be an interesting hybrid opportunity with that idea and 3d avatars. I feel like the head-tracking hack never really took off because it only worked as a solo experience. But since remote work is mostly us all individually sitting at a computer I could see it working better.
Combine this idea with a large dedicated monitor/tv and now you have something that would literally just feel like a window/portal to the person you're talking to.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw