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Collaborative virtual environments are multi-user virtual realities which actively support communication and co-operation. This book addresses the theory, design, realisation and evaluation of such systems, with a particular emphasis on support for large numbers of distributed users. A broad approach is taken, which ranges from the sociology of interpersonal communication to the management of communication in distributed systems. The emphasis on multi-user environments distinguishes this book from the many general books on virtual reality which only deal with single-user systems. This book presents: models of multi-party awareness and interaction in space-based systems; detailed designs of two prototypes (MASSIVE-1 and MASSIVE-2); experiences with collaborative virtual environments created using these; and analyses of the corresponding network requirements. Many of these results and ideas are applicable to other systems and approaches.
List of contents
Introduction.- CVEs: a review.- The spatial model of interaction.- MASSIVE-1.- Direct awareness.- Spatial trading.- Third party objects.- MASSIVE-2.- Contextualised awareness.- Awareness driven communication.- Conclusions.- Appendix A: User profiling.- Appendix B: Colour plates.- Appendix C: Exploitation and dissemination.- Appendix D: Video contents.- References.- Index.
About the author
Chris lived and worked in Italy and Athens for five years before returning to the UK to complete his PhD on the American poet, Frank O'Hara. In 1992 he received an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors. He has since published three volumes of poetry, a novel, and written the screenplay for Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, which was selected to occupy the prestigious closing slot at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. He is married to Ruth, has two young sons, Saul and Ethan, and is Deputy Head Academic at Sevenoaks School in Kent.
