Scaling virtual worlds: Simulation requirements and challenges

Author

Liu, Huaiyu ; Bowman, Mic ; Adams, Robert ; Hurliman, John ; Lake, Dan

Author_Institution

Intel Labs., Intel Corp., Hillsboro, OR, USA

fYear

2010

fDate

5-8 Dec. 2010

Firstpage

778

Lastpage

790

Abstract

Virtual worlds use simulation to create a fully-immersive 3D space in which users interact and collaborate in real time. It is still a great challenge to scale virtual worlds to provide rich user experiences, high level of realism, and innovative usages. There are three unique simulation requirements in scaling virtual worlds: (1) large-scale, real time and perpetual simulations with distributed interaction, (2) simultaneous visualization for many endpoints with unique perspectives, and (3) multiple simulation engines with different operation characteristics. In this paper, we review the challenges in meeting these requirements, present the scalability barriers we observed in current virtual worlds, and discuss potential virtual world architecture and solutions to address the challenges and overcome the barriers.

Keywords

data visualisation; distributed processing; virtual reality; distributed interaction; fully immersive 3D space; multiple simulation engine; perpetual simulation; scalability barrier; simulation requirement; simultaneous visualization; unique simulation requirement; user interaction; virtual world scaling; Data visualization; Physics; Real time systems; Scalability; Second Life; Servers; Three dimensional displays;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Simulation Conference (WSC), Proceedings of the 2010 Winter

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD

ISSN

0891-7736

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9866-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WSC.2010.5679112

Filename

5679112