SharedWeb—a shared virtual environment over the World Wide Web

Abstract

The design, implementation and experimental results of a multiple‐user 3D web‐browsing system, called the SharedWeb system, are described in this paper. The system is based on the request–response method of the WWW server. The key features of this system include the ability of the WWW server to remember all the browsers connected to it in order to transmit the messages required to maintain consistent states among browsers. The dead‐reckoning technique of distributive interactive simulation (DIS) is used by browsers in order to reduce the number of messages sent onto the network and to satisfy the timing requirement demanded by the virtual environment. The protocol data unit (PDU) defined in DIS is also adapted by the SharedWeb system not only to communicate information among browsers but also to integrate with the DIS environment in the near future. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.