A system for the generation of 3D-learning simulations

The use of 3D contents for the e-learning is a very fascinating field, because the virtual reality is a very effective way to convey educational contents. But currently the realization of 3D courseware is still a very challenging task. In this paper we propose an innovative authoring system allowing teachers to easily define 3D interactive simulations. The key idea of the system is to provide a new level of abstraction, useful to specify the simulations context. In this way the tool can be profitably used by teachers, as an LCMS, to represent all the domains that can be described through some vectorial rules. Moreover, the most of the authoring tasks are achieved through the use of some wizards, to minimize the needing of 3D knowledge. Finally, the resulting virtual scenarios are rendered to the students in a highly interactive 3D browser. We successfully employed the system to model simulations in some different 3D-learning domain, such as physics, chemistry and acoustics.