Hybrid Text & Graphics Technology For Collaborative Virtual Environments

The Lanning Group is ready to implement these learning/conferencing environments today and are already at work on the next milestone....Avatar interaction.

Avatars and The Virtual Environment -
How Things Work

Each remote participant is represented by a virtual entity called an avatar. This avatar can interact in many ways with other persons' avatars and with the environment in which all the avatars exist. Each user sees on their screen what the environment presents to their avatar, and their avatar acts in the environment in the manner directed by the user's keyboard input.

The environment reacts to these actions of the user's avatar, and hence other participants also see the acts of the user's avatar reflected on their screens. The environment is not just a simple 'place to be'. It is filled with objects (including the avatars) which have properties that can be examined and used by the avatars. The environment itself manages consistency so that when one person's avatar makes some change to the environment, moves something around, or goes to another part of the environment, all other avatars experience the result in an appropriate manner, transparently to the users.

The environment can be constructed in any manner we please. It can be filled with useful objects for facilitating free-form discussion among the users, such as whiteboards, overhead projectors, notepads, filing cabinets, etc., all of which actually perform as they do in a normal environment.

It can also be programmed to extend the normal environment...to do things not possible in a physical environment. For example, we could recreate a specific historical milieu in which the students were free to act, but only within the constraints imposed by the reality we were modeling. Or they could safely examine hazardous materials behavior or microscopic systems and interactions. Or new systems and interactions could be created from imaginative scratch.

Text and Graphics

With our first generation technology we present the user with two windows on their screen. The first is a text window that scrolls by, the second is a graphics window that changes on command of the environment. In the text window the user experiences what is happening in the environment in real-time presenting descriptions of objects or events in the room, as well as speech.

When one person speaks, the others in the same room immediately see what was said; when someone does something that affects the environment, others immediately see a description of the event. In some cases this is a richer description of the events and places than could be given in a picture since there are things that are easily said which are difficult to display.

The converse is also true; some things are much more easily conveyed via graphics - so we have the graphics window which can display any picture - any URL from any ‘net connected server. The graphics must pre-exist, they are not created on the fly, and they cannot be transmitted in real-time at present; the download time is limited to whatever the user's connection will permit. The content of the graphics can be controlled by an authorized user, or can be automatically selected by the environment when specific events occur.

Simple examples would be slides accompanying a talk by a participant, and pictures of objects which automatically appear when the user's avatar is commanded to look at the object or to change its own location.

Further Details:

Pushing The Web

The Lanning Group integrates two of the most mature, widely used internet technologies into a dynamic, flexible new system - the Hybrid Virtual Environment.

EVENT DRIVEN GRAPHIC DELIVERY

Facilitating dynamic group interactions and self-paced study for individual users.

ABOUT TEXT-BASED VIRTUAL REALITY TECHNOLOGY.

The history and evolution of the MUDs/MOOs and defining features.

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