Understanding Next-Generation VR: Classifying Commodity Clusters for Immersive Virtual Reality

Commodity clusters offer the ability to deliver higher performance computer graphics at lower prices than traditional graphics supercomputers. Immersive virtual reality systems demand notoriously high computational requirements to deliver adequate real-time graphics, leading to the emergence of commodity clusters for immersive virtual reality. Such clusters deliver the graphics power needed by leveraging the combined power of several computers to meet the demands of real-time interactive immersive computer graphics.However, the field of commodity cluster-based virtual reality is still in early stages of development and the field is currently adhoc in nature and lacks order. There is no accepted means for comparing approaches and implementers are left with instinctual or trial-and-error means for selecting an approach.This paper provides a classification system that facilitates understanding not only of the nature of different clustering systems but also the interrelations between them. The system is built from a new model for generalized computer graphics applications, which is based on the flow of data through a sequence of operations over the entire context of the application. Prior models and classification systems have been too focused in context and application whereas the system described here provides a unified means for comparison of works within the field

Analysis domain model for shared virtual environments

The field of shared virtual environments, which also encompasses online games and social 3D environments, has a system landscape consisting of multiple solutions that share great functional overlap. However, there is little system interoperability between the different solutions. A shared virtual environment has an associated problem domain that is highly complex raising difficult challenges to the development process, starting with the architectural design of the underlying system. This paper has two main contributions. The first contribution is a broad domain analysis of shared virtual environments, which enables developers to have a better understanding of the whole rather than the part(s). The second contribution is a reference domain model for discussing and describing solutions - the Analysis Domain Model