A Collaborative Virtual Environment (CVE) is a computer-based virtual space that supports collaborative work and social interplay. In a 3D CVE, a ‘hosting’ 3D world is the necessary
ingredient: within it users provided with graphical embodiments called avatars that convey their identity (presence, location, movement etc.), can meet and interact with other users,
with agents or with virtual objects. Even if graphics hardware and 3D technologies are rapidly evolving and the increased Internet connection speed allows the sharing of amounts of data and information among geographically distributed users, the development of networked three-dimensional applications is still complicated and requires expert knowledge. Although some collaborative 3D Web technologies and applications have already been developed, most of them are particularly concerned with offering a high level realistic representation of the
virtual world since increasing the level of detail increases the sense of ‘virtual presence’ in the 3D world. However, these developments have not, at the same time supported a high
level, non-expert authoring process and the concepts of programming flexibility and component re-use have rarely been taken into account.
In this introduction, we discuss our research experience in the field of Collaborative Virtual Environments. We will outline our approach which has been based on both multi-channel
integration and on high performances issues
