Collaborative Research Within a Sustainable Community: Interactive Multi User VRML and Visualization
Stuart Lovegrove, Ken Brodlie · 2001
Collaborative working, using computer technology as a medium for results, thoughts and ideas, is a goal that is envisaged will enable users to become more productive, efficient and able. With the advances in computer hardware over recent years, collaborative working and virtual reality systems are available for users upon desktop machines. The involvement of the internet has opened up channels of research aiming to deliver these technologies over very wide area networks and in a manner that moves away from proprietary hardware and software systems. VRML, born from a goal of producing a transport mechanism for three dimensional scenes over the internet, has developed into a system that is now capable of including collaborative, multi user, virtual reality and internet technologies. It is the combination of these technologies that will allow a change in working practices and will provide a work environment for use in areas such as collaborative visualization, shared simulation environments and group design. This paper discusses ways in which VRML can be used to support multi user shared environments. We introduce current multi user solutions and additionally present our own. The aim is to extend this solution to deliver a persistent shared space where users may work together for research and design using visualization tools.