Collaborative rendering over peer-to-peer networks

Physically-based high-fidelity rendering pervades areas like engineering, architecture, archaeology and defence, amongs others. The computationally intensive algorithms required for such visualisation benefit greatly from added computational resources when exploiting parallelism. In scenarios where multiple users roam around the same virtual scene, and possibly interact with one another, complex visualisation of phenomena like global illumination are traditionally computed and duplicated at each and every client, or centralised and computed at a single very powerful server. In this paper, we introduce the concept of collaborative high-fidelity rendering over peer-to-peer networks, which aims to reduce redundant computation via collaboration in an environment where client machines are volatile and may join or leave the network at any time.peer-reviewe

Mobility is the Message: Experiments with Mobile Media Sharing

This thesis explores new mobile media sharing applications by building, deploying, and studying their use. While we share media in many different ways both on the web and on mobile phones, there are few ways of sharing media with people physically near us. Studied were three designed and built systems: Push!Music, Columbus, and Portrait Catalog, as well as a fourth commercially available system – Foursquare. This thesis offers four contributions: First, it explores the design space of co-present media sharing of four test systems. Second, through user studies of these systems it reports on how these come to be used. Third, it explores new ways of conducting trials as the technical mobile landscape has changed. Last, we look at how the technical solutions demonstrate different lines of thinking from how similar solutions might look today. Through a Human-Computer Interaction methodology of design, build, and study, we look at systems through the eyes of embodied interaction and examine how the systems come to be in use. Using Goffman’s understanding of social order, we see how these mobile media sharing systems allow people to actively present themselves through these media. In turn, using McLuhan’s way of understanding media, we reflect on how these new systems enable a new type of medium distinct from the web centric media, and how this relates directly to mobility. While media sharing is something that takes place everywhere in western society, it is still tied to the way media is shared through computers. Although often mobile, they do not consider the mobile settings. The systems in this thesis treat mobility as an opportunity for design. It is still left to see how this mobile media sharing will come to present itself in people’s everyday life, and when it does, how we will come to understand it and how it will transform society as a medium distinct from those before. This thesis gives a glimpse at what this future will look like

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms

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

3D Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse: Current Status and Future Possibilities

Moving from a set of independent virtual worlds to an integrated network of 3D virtual worlds or Metaverse rests on progress in four areas: immersive realism, ubiquity of access and identity, interoperability, and scalability. For each area, the current status and needed developments in order to achieve a functional Metaverse are described. Factors that support the formation of a viable Metaverse, such as institutional and popular interest and ongoing improvements in hardware performance, and factors that constrain the achievement of this goal, including limits in computational methods and unrealized collaboration among virtual world stakeholders and developers, are also considered

Towards the 3D Web with Open Simulator

Continuing advances and reduced costs in computational power, graphics processors and network bandwidth have led to 3D immersive multi-user virtual worlds becoming increasingly accessible while offering an improved and engaging Quality of Experience. At the same time the functionality of the World Wide Web continues to expand alongside the computing infrastructure it runs on and pages can now routinely accommodate many forms of interactive multimedia components as standard features - streaming video for example. Inevitably there is an emerging expectation that the Web will expand further to incorporate immersive 3D environments. This is exciting because humans are well adapted to operating in 3D environments and it is challenging because existing software and skill sets are focused around competencies in 2D Web applications. Open Simulator (OpenSim) is a freely available open source tool-kit that empowers users to create and deploy their own 3D environments in the same way that anyone can create and deploy a Web site. Its characteristics can be seen as a set of references as to how the 3D Web could be instantiated. This paper describes experiments carried out with OpenSim to better understand network and system issues, and presents experience in using OpenSim to develop and deliver applications for education and cultural heritage. Evaluation is based upon observations of these applications in use and measurements of systems both in the lab and in the wild.Postprin

State of the art in business games

The use of digital games and gamification has demonstrated potential to improve many aspects of how businesses provide training to staff, and communicate with consumers. However, there is still a need for better understanding of how the adoption of games and gasification would influence the process of decision-making in organisations across different industry. This article provides a structured review of existing literature on the use of games in the business environment, and seeks to consolidate findings to address research questions regarding their perception, proven efficacy, and identifies key areas for future work. The findings highlight that serious games can have positive and effective impacts in multiple areas of a business, including training, decision-support, and consumer outreach. They also emphasise the challenges and pitfalls of applying serious games and gamification principles within a business context, and discuss the implications of development and evaluation methodologies on the success of a game-based solution

Procedural digital twin generation for co-creating in VR focusing on vegetation

An early-stage development of a Digital Twin (DT) in Virtual Reality (VR) is presented, aiming for civic engagement in a new urban development located in an area that is a forest today. The area is presently used for recreation. For the developer, it is important both to communicate how the new development will affect the forest and allow for feedback from the citizen. High quality DT models are time-consuming to generate, especially for VR. Current model generation methods require the model developer to manually design the virtual environment. Furthermore, they are not scalable when multiple scenarios are required as a project progresses. This study aimed to create an automated, procedural workflow to generate DT models and visualize large-scale data in VR with a focus on existing green structures as a basis for participatory approaches. Two versions of the VR prototype were developed in close cooperation with the urban developer and evaluated in two user tests. A procedural workflow was developed for generating DT models and integrated into the VR application. For the green structures, efforts focused on the vegetation, such as realistic representation and placement of different types of trees and bushes. Only navigation functions were enabled in the first user test with practitioners (9 participants). Interactive functions were enabled in the second user test with pupils (age 15, 9 participants). In both tests, the researchers observed the participants and carried out short reflective interviews. The user test evaluation focussed on the perception of the vegetation, general perception of the VR environment, interaction, and navigation. The results show that the workflow is effective, and the users appreciate green structure representations in VR environments in both user tests. Based on the workflow, similar scenes can be created for any location in Sweden. Future development needs to concentrate on the refinement of buildings and information content. A challenge will be balancing the level of detail for communication with residents