Title
The Software Required for the Computer Generation of Virtual Environments
Abstract
Abstract The first phase of virtual world development,has focused on the novel hardware (3D input and 3D output) and the graphics demo. The second phase of virtual worlds development,will be to focus in on the more significant part of the problem, the software bed underlying “real” applications. The focus of this paper is on the software required to support large scale, networked, multi-party virtual environments. We discuss navigation (virtual camera view point control and its coupling to real-time, hidden surface elimination), interaction (software for constructing a dialogue from the inputs read from our devices and for applying that dialogue to display changes), communication (software for passing changes in the world model to other players on the network, and software for allowing the entry of previously undescribed players into the system), autonomy (software for playing autonomous agents in our virtual world against interactive players), scripting (software for recording, playing back and multi-tracking previous play against live or autonomous players, with autonomy provided for departures from the recorded script), and hypermedia integration (software for integrating hypermedia data - audio, compressed video, with embedded links - into our geometrically described virtual world). All of this software serves as the base for the fully-detailed, fully interactive, seamless environment of the third phase of virtual world development. We discuss the development of such software by describing how a real system, the NPSNET virtual world, is being constructed. Keywords: virtual worlds, virtual world software. The Phases of Virtual World Development “Cool” graphics demos, and cable-entangled head-mounted displays on staggering, blinded individuals have been the signature of virtual reality research. We have seen an inordinate amount,of attention on novel 3D input devices, e.g. data gloves, data suits, space balls, “flying mice”, trackers, etc. We have also seen the same level of attention on novel 3D output devices, e.g. headmounted displays, private eyes, VR caves, etc. The second phase of virtual worlds development is focusing on the more significant part of the problem, the software bed underlying “real” applications. It is the software that is the hard part BUT it is the head-mounted display and the data glove that currently get the attention. The third phase of virtual world development,is the usage of the
Year
DOI
Venue
1993
10.1121/1.404534
Teleoperators and Virtual Environments
Keywords
Field
DocType
virtual world software. the phases of virtual world development,virtual worlds,software requirements,virtual environment
Software analytics,Software system,Human–computer interaction,Acoustics,Component-based software engineering,Software walkthrough,Resource-oriented architecture,Software construction,Software development,Software framework,Physics
Journal
Volume
Issue
Citations 
2
2
30
PageRank 
References 
Authors
17.41
11
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Michael J. Zyda1245116.12
David R. Pratt2321100.29
John S. Falby310033.98
Chuck Lombardo43017.41
Kristen M. Kelleher53923.18