Collaborative Workspaces within Distributed Virtual Environments

In warfare, be it a training simulation or actual combat, a commander\u27s time is one of the most valuable and fleeting resources of a military unit. Thus, it is natural for a unit to have a plethora of personnel to analyze and filter information to the decision-maker. This dynamic exchange of ideas between analyst and commander is currently not available within the distributed interactive simulation (DIS) community. This lack of exchange limits the usefulness of the DIS experience to the commander and his troops. This thesis addresses the commander\u27s isolation problem through the integration of a collaborative workspace within AFIT\u27s Synthetic BattleBridge (SBB) as a technique to improve situational awareness. The SBB\u27s Collaborative Workspace enhances battlespace awareness through CSCW (computer supported cooperative work) enabling communication technologies. The SBB\u27s Collaborative Workspace allows the user to interact with other SBB users through the transmission and reception of public bulletins, private email, real-time chat sessions, shared viewpoints, shared video, and shared annotations to the virtual environment. Collaborative communication between SBB occurs through the use of standard and experimental DIS-compliant protocol data units. The SBB\u27s Collaborative Workspace gives the battlespace commander the widest range of communication options available within a DIS virtual environment today

The Automated Wingman: An Airborne Companion for Users of DIS Compatible Flight Simulators

A major problem encountered by users of distributed virtual environments is the lack of simulators available to populate these environments. This problem is usually remedied by using computer generated entities. Unfortunately, these entities often lack adequate human behavior and are readily identified as non-human. This violates the realism premise of distributed virtual reality and is a major problem, especially in training situations. This thesis addresses the problem by presenting a computer generated entity called the Automated Wingman. The Automated Wingman is a semi-automated computer generated aircraft simulator that operates under the control of a designated lead simulator and integrates distributed virtual environments with intelligence. Access to distributed virtual environments is provided through the DIS protocol suite while human behavior is obtained through the use of a fuzzy expert system and a voice interface. The fuzzy expert system is designed around a hierarchy of knowledgebases. Each of these knowledge bases contains a set of fuzzy logic based linguistic variables that control the actions of the Automated Wingman. The voice interface allows the pilot of the lead simulator to direct the activity of the Automated Wingman. This thesis describes the design of the Automated Wingman and presents the current status of its implementation

Distributed shared memory for virtual environments

Bibliography: leaves 71-77.This work investigated making virtual environments easier to program, by designing a suitable distributed shared memory system. To be usable, the system must keep latency to a minimum, as virtual environments are very sensitive to it. The resulting design is push-based and non-consistent. Another requirement is that the system should be scaleable, over large distances and over large numbers of participants. The latter is hard to achieve with current network protocols, and a proposal was made for a more scaleable multicast addressing system than is used in the Internet protocol. Two sample virtual environments were developed to test the ease-of-use of the system. This showed that the basic concept is sound, but that more support is needed. The next step should be to extend the language and add compiler support, which will enhance ease-of-use and allow numerous optimisations. This can be improved further by providing system-supported containers

An Introductory Tutorial for Developing Multi-User Virtual Environments

This paper is an introductory level tutorial describing how to implement a distributed multi-participant virtual environment (VE). This tutorial is intended for students who are competent programmers and who now wish to implement a distributed multi-participant application. We describe the fundamental concepts of distributed computing for multi-player simulations and provide a concrete example, including C source code available via the Internet. The template program demonstrates a simple multi-player, distributed application, where each player controls the position of a space ship, and communicates the ship's position data over the network. The template uses broadcast communication and a technique called dead-reckoning to improve performance. We give detailed instructions on how to obtain and modify the template, so that students can quickly create their own distributed applications. We conclude by briefly discussing advanced issues which are important when constructing more sophistic..

Biblioteca para criação de jogos utilizando geração pseudo-randômica paramétrica, realidade-virtual, inteligência artificial e redes de computadores

Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro Tecnológico. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção.Atualmente os jogos digitais (videogames) envolvem uma fatia considerável de mercado, sendo um negócio de bilhões de dólares (BUSHNELL apud RADINSKY, 1997 www.sjmercury.com/revolutionaries/bushnell.htm, junho 2001). Navegando a rede mundial de computadores, pode-se observar a enorme quantidade de jogos disponíveis, para demonstração e potencial compra pelos usuários cibernéticos. Tais demonstrações são tanto para computadores pessoais como emuladores de sistemas proprietários de videogames. A demanda crescente, junto com o avanço da tecnologia e a concorrência por uma fatia deste mercado, forçam os produtores de jogos a fornecerem produtos e serviços inovadores aos seus clientes, que poderão interagir cada vez mais profundamente com os ambientes virtuais dos jogos digitais, e também com outros clientes, espalhados ao redor do mundo. Sistemas de jogos e periféricos que permitem a interação mais natural com o ser humano, que dão a possibilidade de o usuário interagir com os personagens virtuais através da fala e gestos do corpo, e deixam interagir com outros usuários em outros locais do planeta, ou ainda jogos que são capazes de simular situações e comportamentos parecidos com os personagens da vida real, e produzam ambientes tão imprevisíveis quanto a própria natureza, fazem com que o usuário cada vez mais se convença de que está imerso neste novo mundo virtual. O trabalho a seguir apresenta uma pesquisa feita sobre jogos de computadores, cujo resultado final foi a criação de uma biblioteca de funções para criação de jogos digitais. Tal biblioteca é capaz de conduzir a máquina na geração, através de número randômicos, de mundos imprevisíveis e situações de clima, assim como são no mundo real. A biblioteca criada é capaz de permitir a interação de um usuário com a máquina através de várias interfaces, fazendo com que a comunicação entre usuário e computador seja mais humana. Ela ainda possibilita a interação Finalmente, esta biblioteca possui algoritmos que gerenciam o comportamento de agentes inteligentes, para que também interajam entre si e com os vários usuários do sistema

Abstract An Introductory Tutorial for Developing Multi-User Virtual Environments

This paper is an introductory level tutorial describing how to implement a distributed multi-participant virtual environment (VE). This tutorial is intended for students who are competent programmers and who now wish to implement a distributed multi-participant application. We describe the fundamental concepts of distributed computing for multi-player simulations and provide a concrete example, including C source code available via the Internet. The template program demonstrates a simple multi-player, distributed application, where each player controls the position of a space ship, and communicates the ship’s position data over the network. The template uses broadcast communication and a technique called dead-reckoning to improve performance. We give detailed instructions on how to obtain and modify the template, so that students can quickly create their own distributed applications. We conclude by briefly discussing advanced issues which are important when constructing more sophisticated multi-participant VEs. Page 1 of 1