OpenWebTalk: A Framework to Support High Performances and High Resolution 3D Collaborative Experiences

In the last few years, hardware technology, high bandwidth network and 3D graphics systems brought Virtual Reality (VR) technology into a new field: Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVE). The goal of the application and systems of this domain is to use computers as tools for communication and information sharing through 3D environments working as shared workspaces that provide collaboration facilities in several branches of application (simulation and training, e-learning, collaborative working, etc.). Historically such systems mostly emphasized only the “quality” of graphics (often intended as a kind of photo-realism), and “real-world behavior” (i.e. systematic replica of physics laws) rather than collaborative features and/or engaging features. We advocate the need of frameworks that put together high performances in real-time rendering with a huge grade of configurability. This would allow the fast prototyping of a large number of 3D collaborative environments in an easy way without spending much time in reprogramming the system. Moreover the use of photo-realistic graphics should enhance the level of engagement during the collaborative experiences conveying these virtual environments a high sense of virtual presence. In our survey (we reviewed both commercial frameworks and academic approaches) we verified the lack of such systems. In this paper, we present OpenWebTalk, a framework to support high performances and high resolution 3D collaborative experiences, that is based on the experience we have done with WebTalk, a 3D CVE system mainly used for collaborative educational aims, to support, in a flexible way, high performances real-time collaboration. We also explored the framework’s capabilities to configure itself on the basis of an XML meta-model declaration language representing not only workspace, but also interaction rules shared within the 3D users during the collaborative experiences. The OpenWebTalk photo-realistic rendering capabilities will allow us to use this architecture in a large range of applications that spans from the e-learning to the architectural virtual reconstructions. After the indetail framework description, we present the results of an early experimentation that will show how the framework’s performances scale with the scene complexity, and with the number of users concurrently connected.