VIRTUS: A collaborative multi-user platform

This paper describes our communication platform over which a 3D CVE (Collaborative Virtual Environment) called SPIN-3D is built. With our 3D interface, a small group of people operates simultaneously on 3D objects described with the VRML format. Multi-user is supported through a VRML extension. We propose to share some data of the scene tree as well as an easy way to implement this solution: each shared data communicates with its remote copies through a multicast CORBA technology for discrete actions and through multicast real-time streams for animations.

Proceedings Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium '95, 1995

Virtual reality toolkits and systems for computer supported cooperative work are often treated separately. However, combining them offers new possibilities for remote cooperative (or collaborative) group working. In this paper we review existing distribution models of virtual environments and propose a new method of concurrent interaction management. We will examine the different types of communication layers, which are needed by collaborative virtual reality (VR) applications to achieve complex user interaction. Finally we propose a model for handling the different requirements of such applications, depending on the connection strategies used within a distributed VR system.

Handbook of Internet computing, 2000

Integration of the multi-user virtual reality environment into the Web environment provides a richer way for the user to access the network resource, such as video or sound clip, and to build a virtual society over the Internet.

Proceedings of the 5th …, 2005

In this paper a model and a Java-based framework to aid the construction of 3D Web-browsing collaborative virtual environments (3D-CVE) populated by interactive entities are described. Our proposal emphasizes on the collaboration aspects among the entities that populate the virtual world and the services that they offer each other in order to carry out collaboration, rather than the modeling and aesthetical aspects of the worlds. We propose a model for the conceptualization of the virtual world under the concept of social groups, a graph-based high level notation to specify the interactions among the entities, and a Java based software framework that gives support to the model and the interaction graph in order to facilitate the implementation of the CVE. By means of a directed graph, the model describes interaction between the entities that populate the virtual world. The nodes and edges of the graph can be mapped to entities (classes and interfaces) of the proposed architecture, reducing the time and effort needed to develop this type of applications. The architecture allows for easy distribution management of processes between clients and a server, or otherwise its centralization within a central server. We describe the current implementation and an example application.

2005

This work aims the creation of virtual worlds by working teams with resource to advanced interaction techniques, such as speec h commands and gestures, as well as the resource to portable devices. The physical characteristics of virtual reality environments lead us to a different kind of user interfaces. However, we found some usefulness on the classic WIMP paradigm, which we also apply by using a PDA, in order to complement the interaction possibilities. In terms of application description we use the Virtual Reality Modeling Language. One of the main goals is the separation/combination of VRML files in order to allow the work to b e cared out individually by the members of the team, and later combine the results to produce the global virtual world.

IEEE Communications Magazine, 2000

Collaborative Virtual Environments, which have been referred to by many different names over the years, have been around since the early 90's, and some even before as hardware dedicated versions; now they are being standardized by the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG). This paper examines most of the significant systems over the past 13 years, discussing some of the most pioneering systems and the main methodologies implied, and whether their standardization is feasible.

Abstract: The broad availability of large datasets for decision-making, as well as current technological trends in large-area projection systems and intelligent interaction devices pose new challenges for designing Virtual Environments (VEs) for decision-making processes. This paper addresses three main challenges for modern VEs in the context of decision-making: the render organisation for large-scale projection systems, the scene navigation by a group of concurrent users, and the in-place modification of rendered datasets by concurrent users. Distributed Rendering, Collaborative User Navigation and Collaborative Scene Manipulation are my proposed approaches for extending VEs to work in modern decision-making setups.

icme, 2003

With the growing demand for collaboration technologies, several CSCW (Compute-Supported Cooperative Work) systems have been developed. CVEs (Collaborative Virtual Environments) represent an important category of CSCW systems that generally make use of 3D shared space to provide collaboration facilities. However in most CVEs collaboration is restricted to the Virtual Reality context. In this paper it is proposed to extend CVEs through the integration of different collaboration tools in order to allow collaboration to take place in different contexts (e.g. Web browsing), in a parallel and coordinated way with the virtual scene.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2000

In this paper, we present Gasp, a General Animation and Simulation Platform, whose purpose is to animate autonomous or userdriven agents, and we explain how it can be used for Collaborative V i rtual Reality. First, we explain its architecture, based on the notion of simulation objects or agents associated with a calculation part the behavior. Then we describe how i t is possible to distribute e ciently our agents upon a network in order to share the amount of calculation between several computers. Finally, as the visualisation of a simulation is also a simulation object, we show that our architecture allows us to distribute several visualisations upon a network to share a 3D interactive simulation between several users.

Proceedings of the fourth symposium on Virtual reality modeling language - VRML '99, 1999

Distributed work is becoming a major issue for a large part of the work force and distributed collaborative research has almost become the norm. Consequently, distributed communication facilities play an important role in all future working and education scenarios. Tele-Teaching and Tele-Learning are important new applications for remote data access. Currently mainly focussing on audio-visual communication, Tele-Education has not discovered distributed 3D virtual environments to a large extent. However, we firmly believe that the demand for interactive exploration of distributed 3D databases over the internet and for collaboration within virtual 3D environments will soon become one of he driving forces of future deveopments. This paper presents an architecture, called VR-Lab, which embeds a distributed VRML-System and a remote contollable, distributed presentation environment to support Tele-Learning and education including 3D media.

2000

Dynamic on the fly creation and modification of virtual reality worlds in a distributed environment.

Future Generation Computer …, 2003

Ygdrasil is a programming framework for creating networked, multi-user virtual worlds, especially interactive artistic worlds. It provides a shared scene graph, a plug-in system for adding new behaviors, and a high-level script interface for composing these worlds. We describe the architecture of Ygdrasil, and its use in creating two applications that were demonstrated at the iGrid 2002 workshop.

2002

Abstract VRML97 allows the description of dynamic worlds that can change with both the passage of time, and user interaction. Unfortunately, the current VRML usage model prevents its full potential from being realized. Initially, the whole world must be loaded into the user's desktop browser, and so large worlds can take a very long time to download and render, while a world cannot be shared among multiple users.

1998

2002

One of the ultimate goals of SNHC is to provide a framework supporting the Networked Collaborative Virtual Environments (NCVE) for a wide range of applications. We briefly present an existing NCVE system called Virtual Life Network (VLNET). VLNET is a NCVE system incorporating realistic representation and animation of virtual humans for higher realism of simulation and more natural interaction with users of the system, as well as with autonomous agents. Based on our experience in VLNET we analyze the requirements of NCVE systems that should be considered by SNHC. In particular, we examine in detail various types of data traveling through the network in this type of application, and requirements for each type.