Within the framework of collaborative interactions, with 3D numerical copies of real objects inserted in virtual environments, this paper tackles the issue of 3D object reconstruction from multiple calibrated cameras. After examining the various constraints related to collaborative systems, we propose comprehensive state of the art 3D reconstruction techniques. The main families of approaches are here identified, described and discussed in detail. The analysis of the literature shows that there is a lack of methods that are able to respond to the needs of the collaborative interaction applications, and that perform adequately in terms of computation time and reconstruction accuracy. Accordingly, we propose a new multiresolution volumetric approach that is able to obtain numerical copies of real objects at multiple resolutions. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach provides accurate reconstructions at reasonable, interactive computation times. Use of the proposed approach for progressive insertion of reconstructed objects in the prototype interfaces MOWGLI and Spin-3D developed by ranceTelecom R&D, is also illustrated