Demonstration and guided tours of virtual worlds on the internet

ABSTRACT

Multi-user virtual worlds are proliferating on the Internet. These are two and three dimensional graphical environments inhabited by users represented as digital actors called "avatars". Through this medium, a wide variety of Internet users are participating in a large scale social experiment and collaborating on a variety of projects. The inhabited virtual world is an exciting new medium for HCI professionals including interaction and graphic designers, and educators and researchers focused on distance learning and teleworking. It also appeals to children and ordinary users of the Internet as a vast new digital playground and a venue for personal expression. This demonstration will introduce participants to a variety of inhabited virtual worlds and give them hands-on experience in collaboratively building and interacting with other users in the worlds.

REFERENCES

• 1: User experiences in design and collaboration through the virtual world medium are extensively documented on the World Wide Web at http://www.ccon.org.

INDEX TERMS

Keywords:
VRML, avatars, collaborative workspaces, social computing, three dimensional interfaces, virtual worlds