Distributed Virtual Reality:
applications for education, entertainment and industry

By Carl E Loeffler

Abstract

Introduction

The Networked  Virtual Art Museum

	Visual art and architecture

	World building

	Telecommunications

	Artificial intelligence

	Groupware and communication protocol

	Cost analysis

The Museum

The Fun House

New directions

The Virtual City

Teleconferencing  and design

Connectivity

More connectivity

Conclusion

References

Acknowledgements

Case was twenty-four. At twenty-two, he'd been a cowboy, a rustler, one of the best in the Sprawl. He'd been trained by the best ... He'd operated on an almost permanent adrenaline high, a byproduct of youth and proficiency, jacked into a custom cyberspace deck that projected his disembodied consciousness into the consensual hallucination that was the matrix.

William Gibson,
Neuromancer,
1984 (1)

Cyberspace is a globally networked, computer sustained, computer generated, multi-dimensional, artificial, or virtual reality. In this world, onto which every computer screen is a window, actual, geographical distance is irrelevant. Objects seen or heard are neither physical, nor, necessarily, representations of physical objects, but are rather - in form, character, and action - made up of data, of pure information. This information is derived in part from the operations of the natural, physical world, but is derived primarily from the immense traffic of symbolic information, images, sounds, and people, that constitute human enterprise in science, art, business, and culture.

Michael Benedikt,
Collected Cyberspace Abstracts,
1990 (2)

We foresee that computing environments in the next decade will be very widely distributed, ubiquitous, open-ended, and ever changing. All the computers in the world will be mutually connected. New services will be added from time to time, while old services will be replaced. New computers will be connected, and the network topology and capacity will be changing almost continually. Users will demand the same interface to the environment regardless of login sites. Users will move with computers and will move even while using them. Users will also demand much better user interfaces, so that they will be able to communicate with computers as if they are communicating with humans.

Mario Tokoro,
Toward Computing
Systems for the 2000's,
1991(3)

Introduction

Earlier in this text, Gibson, Benedikt, and Tokoro are cited. At first reading they might appear to be divergent tracks, but welding them together contributes significantly toward the framing of a 'matrix,' a 'computer-sustained, computer-generated, multi-dimensional, artificial, or virtual reality,' that is 'widely distributed, ubiquitous, open-ended, and ever changing.' They also suggest three essential areas of recent cultural and technical development:

1. The formation of a cyber culture, which includes individuals who prefer to inhabit the domain of distributed digital media - electronic bulletin boards, databases, and multi-user simulation environments, including virtual reality. These inhabitants more or less live in such domains; the majority of their time is occupied within them. There they can alter their identities, their manner of social interaction, and their relationship with society. They become virtual beings in a virtual place. By living in such domains, a society becomes established, and a morality may emerge. What kind of morality will this be? Will it be governed? By whom and for what? This line of questioning becomes even more involving when one considers distributed virtual reality as a three dimensional environment, that may contain private spaces or residences, which contain personal objects and possessions.

2. The emulation of the physical world, and private spaces may have doors, closets, and windows that look out onto multi-dimensional vistas. Toolkits allow for the transformation of the world, and extensions of it are comprised of a never ending field of pure data. The field of data can include all walks of commerce and produce worlds which do not fit our present descriptors. Some experiences will be familiar, like going shopping, or going to a concert. Other things will be unusual, like going to an ancient place or another planet.

3. The pervasiveness of the data field is everywhere, and people move about with computer devices. Interfaces become intuitive. Guides or agents co-inhabit the domains. Agents acquire knowledge, become familiar, and grow old with us.

The Networked Virtual Art Museum

Visual art and architecture

World building

Telecommunications

Artificial intelligence

Groupware and communication protocol

Cost analysis

The project team has designed and constructed a multi-national art museum in immersion based virtual reality. The construction of the museum involves a developing grid of participants located in remote geographical locations. Nodes are networked using modem-to-modem telephone lines, the Internet, and eventually high bandwidth telecommunications.

Each participating node will have the option to interact with the virtual environment and contribute to its shape and content. Participants are invited to create additions or galleries, install works, or commission researchers and artists to originate new works for the museum. Tool rooms will be available, so one can construct additional objects and functions to existing worlds, or build entire new ones. Further, guest curators will have the opportunity to organize special exhibitions, explore advanced concepts, and investigate critical theory pertaining to virtual reality and cultural expression.

The Museum

Now that the framework of the museum project has been described, perhaps it is useful to discuss the essential points of one application.

The Fun House

Fun house: a building in an amusement park that contains various devices designed to startle or amuse.

For the first installation in the Networked Virtual Art Museum, a Fun House was designed. While making metaphorical reference to the 'fun house' found throughout traditional amusement parks, the application is an investigation of interaction and perception employing networked, immersion based virtual reality. It was this world which was utilized during the first long range demonstration conducted between Carnegie Mellon University and Munich, Germany, in September 1992. A more recent demonstration, featuring a different virtual world, was conducted between CMU and Tokyo, sponsored by the International Conference on Artificial Reality and Tele-existence, July 1993, Japan.

The fun house metaphor is particularly applicable as a container for virtual experience. Upon entering a fun house, one is acutely aware of being cast into a different world. And one's senses are amused and assaulted by a number of devices - trick mirrors, fantasy characters, manipulation of gravity, spatial disorientation, mazes and sound, for example. In the virtual Fun House, various traditional devices are adapted and some new ones are offered.

Key attributes to be found in the Fun House include:

• Objectification of 'self' within an immersion environment.
  Users can select their image from a library including Frankenstein, Dracula, and a doctor, among others - the Cookie Man has proved to be a favourite. When entering the Fun House, users can see their image reflected in real time in a mirror. They can also see the images of other users. Users can extend their hands and wave at each other - a basic and highly communicative form of human expression.

• Interaction with a client (or agent) which has an 'artificial intelligence.' When entering the Fun House a client greets you and speaks. It has a polite behavior and is programmed to face you, follow at a certain distance, and to stay out of your way. After a while, it stops following and says goodbye. Smart objects are also incorporated; touching them calls events within the program.

• Interaction with multiple users in real time.
  Networked telecommunications allow for the simultaneous support of multiple users within the Fun House. For the demonstration between CMU and Munich, the users selected the Dracula and Cookie Man personas from the library. Each user could see the other, had an independent point of view, and could move objects.

• Links to moving objects.
  The Fun House features a Merry-go-round; users can grab hold and catch a ride while music plays.

• Objects attach themselves to users. The Fun House features a Flying Saucer ride, where users are transported up into the space craft, and they can pilot its flight. The event calls the 'beaming up' of the user and a whirring sound associated with flying saucers.

• Attributes of physical laws.
  The Fun House features a Ball Game, where users pick up a ball and throw it at targets. The ball falls, bounces, and loses velocity. Thus gravity, velocity, and friction are articulated. The motion of the ball is sound intensive.

New directions

Currently under design are three applications for a public institution or educational setting; they are also network capable: the Music Room, Construction Room, and Painting Room. These are friendly and intuitive environments which require little learning curve to utilize. Instructions are bilingual, in Spanish and English, and the environment is co-habited by small agents or 'beasons' that are programmed with a low level artificial intelligence. There are guides to the various interactive objects, and they demonstrate how the environment functions by literal illustration. In the Music Room they run around and make contact with the instruments, and thus play music. Users can see which instruments produce what sounds and how to perform them. Intuitive controls are available for navigating around in the room.

The Music Room contains three basic instruments. The largest is a large six note keyboard attached to a wall. This instrument plays a pentatonic scale in three voices - orchestra, choir, and percussion. It is performed by touching the keys, or by simply waving ones hand within close proximity. The other instruments are a drum and shakers.

The Construction Room is designed for young children. It contains building blocks which can be assembled to construct objects, sort of a virtual Lego set. In this case, there is a nearly infinite supply of blocks, and one can enter into some of the objects created, such as a house. The 'beasons' co-inhabit this site as well, bounce merrily on the blocks, and illustrate how to stack them.

The Painting Studio is quite literal - a site for making paintings or graffiti. The user can select from a number of 'brush' effects, and choose colors.

As of this writing, negotiations are underway to present these three applications are in design stages, and intended for a public science museum setting, networked with other facilities. They are also designed for use by school districts and other institutions.

The Virtual City

The concept of a city project was previously discussed, among the team. However, the conception of it accelerated, when approached by a film production company to produce a virtual set for a commercially distributed motion picture. The set would of course be a city, and from that point the virtual city began to quickly formulate.

The salient points of the virtual city include:

• a distributed, three dimensional inhabitable environment

• investigation of tele-existence in a distributed virtual construct

• capability of supporting potentially unlimited participants

• private spaces, property and moral code

• exploration of tools to alter the environment, while inhabiting it

• interface (GUI) for home shopping and entertainment.

Teleconferencing and design

Education can benefit with regard to long distance learning, and the industry can gain from a higher level of video teleconferencing. This raises the question, what is the advantage of distributed virtual reality over video teleconferencing. And the answer is, the relationship to the subject.

In a teleconferencing session employing distributed virtual reality, multiple participants can share a dynamic relationship with their subject. For example, imagine a team of automobile designers discussing options via video teleconferencing. To look at the subject, they might program a pre-recorded videotape, highlighting the desired aspects.

In contrast, for the Ford Motor Company a distributed Virtual Showroom and Virtual Test Track was designed. During this teleconference, the participants can actually traverse around the car. Open doors, hood and trunk. Test drive it. And in detailed applications, examine specific, even minute parts in detail.

While the Ford showroom and driving applications were produced from from a consumer standpoint, it has become increasingly apparent that they could bring benefit to teleconferencing sessions. Their key advantage, is the dynamic relationship with the subject. Of course the subject need not be automobiles, and applications can be developed to serve a wide range of interests.

Also produced was a proof of concept demonstration of a Virtual Design Station, re-inforcing the actuality to approach virtual reality as a site to build things. Design is used broadly here, inclusive of other multi-media.

The following are salient aspects of a design studio which would employ distributed virtual reality:

• The virtual environment supports interaction among networked remote production teams, for the purpose of industrial design and teleconferencing.

• The application establishes a relationship between an actual workstation, and a virtual workstation, operators have the capability of switching back and forth, employing a windowing method.

• Tele-existence is made evident thru synchronous voice communication, and the capability of each member to 'see' the other members in the virtual environment.

• Stations consist of display, stylus, keyboard and mouse; additional input devices include head mounted displays, data gloves, and machine vision for voice and gesture recognition.

• Design teams utilize proprietary software.

Connectivity

• direct dial up lines

• Internet computer network

• high band networks

• cable television

• wireless.

Select functions for point to point include:

• providing all functions of the virtual world creation software in a distributed manner; the world and its attributes are distributed to each node, and one node is specified to be the controller

• providing constant views and updates of each users's object manipulations; users can move objects, including themselves, and updates to position and change occur with imperceptible update cycles

• writing and saving files to record the manipulations to objects; users can change worlds and carry an object with them into another world.

More connectivity

• The formation of a client-server model, where multiple users can simultaneously share immersion environments

• The servers or nodes are to be located across the world and can be updated automatically via the Internet

• The nodes will offer sites for access and distribution of virtual reality software

• The nodes will support multiple platforms.

Conclusion

Distributed virtual reality has a history and has been given many different forms, shaped by varied intentions. It also has the promise of a future, marking the advancing edge of a new industry.

References