Distributed virtual reality using Octopus

With the widespread popularity of the Internet and advances in distributed computing and in virtual reality, more flexibility is needed in the development and use of collaborative virtual environments. In this paper, we present Octopus, a cross-platform, object-oriented API for constructing shared virtual worlds. The list of goals for Octopus, a description of its design and a detailed discussion of its implementation are provided. The design description gives explanations of the three components of Octopus: the core that handles networking and data sharing, the interface for implementing user representations in the virtual space (avatars), and the actual implementations of the avatars.