Re: Digest for openqwaq@googlegroups.com - 1 Message in 1 Topic

[Keith Weng]

Hey folks,

Note the VW augmented with cameras attached to Oculus Rift:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc_TCLoH2CA

See about 16 minutes into the movie.

Might offer a way to collaborate over real-world objects in front of one person.

Keith

On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 4:22 PM, <open...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

  Today's Topic Summary

Group: http://groups.google.com/group/openqwaq/topics

• New Virtual World Framework demos [1 Update]

 New Virtual World Framework demos

Giulio Prisco <giu...@gmail.com> Jan 18 05:10PM +0100  

New Virtual World Framework demos
http://telexlr8.net/2013/01/18/new-virtual-world-framework-demos/
Take a look at these new VWF demos, which show the awesome potential of the
Virtual World Framework, a web-based architecture for creating and
distributing secure, scalable, component-based, and collaborative virtual
spaces.
 
The Virtual World Framework <http://virtualworldframework.com/> (VWF) “is a
fast, light-weight, web-based architecture for creating and distributing
secure, scalable, component-based, and collaborative virtual spaces. It
leverages existing web-based standards, infrastructure, and emerging
technologies with the intent of establishing a powerful yet simple to use
platform that is built on top of the next generation of web browsers.”
 
I fell totally in love with Second
Life<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_life>one minute after joining
in 2005, then with
OpenQwaq <http://telexlr8.net/openqwaq/> virtual meetings. I thought Neal
Stephenson <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Stephenson>‘s Snow
Crash<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_crash>vision of a highly
immersive consumer virtual reality Metaverse would soon
become a reality. As we all know, Snow Crash crashed, Second Life went out
of fashion in only a couple of years, and 3D virtual environments for
“serious” (non-gaming) applications have not attracted many users, but the
Metaverse may still become a reality with next generation systems like the
VWF and next generation immersive 3D
interfaces<http://telexlr8.net/2013/01/18/the-oculus-rift-vr-headset-makes-the-wearer-feel-literally-living-in-a-video-game/>
.
 
The Virtual World
Framework<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_world_framework>is open
source, based on the open standards
WebGL <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebGL>,
HTML5<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5>and
JavaScript <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Javascript>, and runs natively in
the browser. Though it is based on different technical choices, the VWF can
be considered as a “Croquet 2.0,” a next generation of the Open
Croquet<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opencroquet>,
Open Cobalt <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Cobalt>, and
OpenQwaq<http://telexlr8.net/openqwaq/>technology, because it is based
on a similar distributed instruction model,
originally envisioned by David
Reed<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_P._Reed>in his
dissertation <http://publications.csail.mit.edu/lcs/specpub.php?id=773>.
 
“When a user does something (like presses the arrow key on his computer)
the system creates and sends the instruction to a central location,” says 3D
ICC <http://3dicc.com/>‘s Ron Teitelbaum <http://3dicc.com/about/> on
the OpenQwaq
mailing list <https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#%21forum/openqwaq>.
“That system timestamps the instruction and sends it out to everyone. Every
computer then plays the instruction in order so that the consistency of the
environment is maintained. Since the tiny instructions are much smaller
than rendering graphics and sending them out over the wire, this is a very
efficient way to maintain a consistent state. VWF is a new version of this
sort of client with some really cool new concepts added in by [the key
developer] David
Smith<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_A._Smith_%28computer_scientist%29>
.”
 
Rob Chadwick has a good technical
explanation<http://www.adlnet.gov/virtual-world-framework-and-lrs-integration>of
the
demos <http://virtualworldframework.com/web/catalog.html> on the VWF
website, with the video below. The demos are just simple proofs of concept,
but they show the awesome potential of the VWF technology.
 
Chadwick has recently released a new VWF
demo<http://vwf.adlnet.gov/adl/sandbox>with a set of in-world editing
tools. I played with the new demo and took
these two pictures, reminiscent of Second Life circa 2003. While building
these basic shapes I had the same WOW feeling that I had when I first tried
to build in Second Life. The demos are slow, not very reliable and don’t
work on all browsers (there are some differences between implementations of
WebGL on different browsers and operating systems), but they show a huge
potential. In a few years, the VWF may become a robust, open source and
easy to use equivalent of Second Life in the browser, suitable for all
sorts of gaming and non-gaming applications. Predicting the future is
always difficult, especially the near future, but this seems to me a solid
Metaverse technology contender.


 

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