Middleware Services for Scalable Networked Virtual Environments

Project Dates: From April 2003 to March 2006

Project Leader: Dr. Graham Morgan

Sponsors: EPSRC

 

A networked virtual environment (net-VE) provides a graphical representation of a virtual world that may be navigated by geographically dispersed users. Mechanisms are provided to enable users to interact with the world and each other. A major challenge for the net-VE research community is providing net-VE services with qualities that ensure users share a mutually consistent view of a virtual world while enabling users to interact with each other in real-time. The aim of this project is to satisfy real-time and consistency requirements of net-VE applications. We aim to accommodate variations in quality of service of different parts of the underlying network by allowing developers to specify the trade off between message delivery guarantees (consistency) and real-time requirements on a per network link basis.

This work may benefit users of Computer Supported Collaborative Work and networked training simulators (e.g., military).