Scaling Virtual Worlds with a Physical Metaphor

Horn, Daniel Reiter; Cheslack-Postava, Ewen; Azim, Tahir; Freedman, Michael J.; Levis, Philip

doi:10.1109/mprv.2009.54

Cited by 15 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Another architecture is Sirikata [9][21]. Sirikata's architecture has three components: space, object host, and Content Delivery Network (CDN).…”

Section: Separating the Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

A Large Scale Distributed Virtual Environment Architecture

Baba¹,

Herawan²

2015

SIC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Virtual Environment (VE) is a simulation application that is widely used for the development of computer generated synthetic environments. A Distributed VE (DVE) allows many users to access a VE concurrently from different locations. Most current DVEs are still using simulator-centric architecture that views VE operations as a set of homogenous simulators, each aggregating data structure and all the actors operating on the data structure. This architecture limits the number of users involved in the DVE. It reduces users' experiences because the area of VE is restricted. Also, when the number of objects increases, the VE runs more slowly. Although other architectures such as Distributed Scene Graph and Sirikata, have become available, the simulator still manages many objects in the simulation. It also restricts the number of objects and users involved in the VE. This paper proposes a new architecture to enable large scale distributed virtual environment. A simulator separation method is developed based on objects consisting of one process for one object (1P1O). The 1P1O architecture has a core component that comprises several simulators. In order to maintain the object, each simulator has two engines: physics engine and scripts engine. To maintain the consistency of the simulation, we introduce Universe that stores all objects state generated by simulators. Universe is responsible to store the state updates and disseminate them to interested simulators. There are two aspects used to evaluate the scalability of the 1P1O model, i.e. the number of objects and the number of concurrent users involved. Parameters such as CPU usages and memory allocation are used to analyze and evaluate the performance of the model. Experiments are conducted with varying number of objects and users. Compared with current architecture, the 1P1O model scalability and performance are better than current existing models in P2P network. The experiment results also comply with the mathematical model of the simulator and universe.

show abstract

“…Another architecture is Sirikata [9][21]. Sirikata's architecture has three components: space, object host, and Content Delivery Network (CDN).…”

Section: Separating the Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several methods have been generated to scale DVEs such as dividing simulation workload [3] [4], using dynamic load balancing among servers [5], and creating alternative architectures [6] [7][8] [9]. Scaling the DVEs can be done at the server's side (using cluster or cloud computing) or the client's side (using peer-to-peer model).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Large Scale Distributed Virtual Environment Architecture

Baba¹,

Herawan²

2015

SIC

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Another architecture is Sirikata [11,34]. Sirikata"s architecture splits the functionality of the platform into three concepts i.e.…”

Section: Separating the Componentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, if at one place there are a lot of events, which involve many users, then it makes sense to dynamically allocate one server to perform user management tasks for that particular place and maybe just one more server to handle users in all other parts of the world. This allows one to efficiently reuse the hardware and thus decrease the cost of running a virtual world [9].Another architecture is Sirikata [11,34]. Sirikata"s architecture splits the functionality of the platform into three concepts i.e.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Object-Based Viewpoint For Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environment

Elfizar¹,

Baba²,

Herawan³

2015

MJCS

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Distributed Virtual Environment (DVE) is a shared application consisting many objects INTRODUCTIONVirtual Environment (VE) as a simulation application is widely studied and used for the development of computer generated synthetic environments and analysis purposes. To involve many users in a VE, Distributed Virtual Environment (DVE) is often needed. Many users in separated places can come together to collaborate in a VE. For instance, they can use DVE to collaborate virtually with each other to carry out a work such as surgery training, automotive assembly simulations, etc. They can also go to a virtual music concert or attend a virtual classroom.Virtual world is one of the most popular applications of DVE. For instance is Second Life [1], which is the state of the art of virtual worlds. On May 2012, the world of Second Life was made up of thousands of regions, which if they are linked together will spread over 1,962.93 km 2 of virtual lands [2]. The world consists of avatars, terrains, trees, buildings, and other objects. Each region is a process run by a simulator. With Second Life, users can enjoy the 3D scenery, walk, drive, interact with other avatars, play games, or create objects. In fact, 99% of objects in Second Life are user created [3]. This virtual world is often used commercially by users to sell their properties to others. Therefore, DVEs may have a very large number of objects and users at one time and this can easily overload a fast network, as well as impose huge processing requirements at the server and client computers. As computing resources are limited, there are obvious problems that arise once the number of objects and users in a simulation reach a certain limit. If no special mechanisms are provided, one may expect a DVE to produce undesirable effects such as choppy rendering, and loss of interactivity, due to lack of processing power to handle the increasing load.Scaling a DVE depends on two aspects, i.e. scaling the number of concurrent users interacting with each other, or scaling the scene complexity (number of objects and the complexity of their behaviours and appearances). Several methods have been generated to scale DVEs such as dividing simulation workload [4-6], using dynamic load balancing among servers [7], and creating alternative architectures [8][9][10][11]. Scaling the DVEs can be done at the server"s side (using cluster or cloud computing) or the client"s side (using peer-to-peer model). However, these techniques are not enough to accommodate DVEs with huge number of objects and thousands of concurrent users. Other than that, increasing the number of objects and users decreases the performance of DVE.In this paper, we determine the characteristics of the present DVEs. These characteristics are then used to determine the present viewpoint to develop the DVEs. To address the limitation of current approaches, we propose a novel viewpoint, called object-based viewpoint, to generate a new DVE architecture. The novelty of the proposed approach is that, unlike the existi...

show abstract

“…Other non-proprietary (open software) options exist, offering inexpensive and more flexible development infrastructure, such as Open Wonderland [3], Sirikata [4] or Open Cobalt [5], but the most extended alternative is OpenSim [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An architecture for virtual labs in engineering education

Rico

Ramírez

Riofrío

et al. 2012

Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE Global Engineering Education Conference (EDUCON)

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-This paper describes the preliminary results of an educational innovation project in which virtual world technologies have been used to build up a set of virtual laboratories oriented to engineering studies. Focusing on the architecture of a biotechnology laboratory created in this project, we describe how this architecture will also be adopted in other labs under construction, so that these labs can also take advantage of the same educational benefits. Instead of relying on a commercial software solution, these labs have been created with an open source software infrastructure named OpenSim. The limitations found in OpenSim and the solutions that have been provided to overcome these limitations are shown. Virtual worlds; virtual labs; non-immersive virtual environments; engineering education; opensim

show abstract

Scaling Virtual Worlds with a Physical Metaphor

Cited by 15 publications

References 1 publication

A Large Scale Distributed Virtual Environment Architecture

A Large Scale Distributed Virtual Environment Architecture

Object-Based Viewpoint For Large-Scale Distributed Virtual Environment

An architecture for virtual labs in engineering education

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About