Synchronization methods for supporting distributed 3D virtual environments in Java™

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a 3D distributed virtual environment (DVE). The DVE, created using Java, is intended to allow for the creation of applications to enable multiple users to collaboratively interact in, and communicate about, a virtual world. This DVE is used to primarily support a flight simulator application. Three client-server synchronization methods were developed and compared. The method of transparent synchronization with non-blocking I/O has been found to be the best method for maintaining synchronization among DVEs. The successful creation of the DVE and the positive results collected in the supporting experimental data, leads to the conclusion that Java, with the addition of the non-blocking I/O and 3D API's, can be successfully used to create high performance 3D DVEs.

REFERENCES

• 1: Shaun Bangay, Experiences in porting a virtual reality system to Java, Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Computer graphics, virtual reality and visualisation, November 05-07, 2001, Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa [doi>10.1145/513867.513875]
• 2: Matt Welsh , David Culler , Eric Brewer, SEDA: an architecture for well-conditioned, scalable internet services, Proceedings of the eighteenth ACM symposium on Operating systems principles, October 21-24, 2001, Banff, Alberta, Canada
• 3: Grigore C. Burdea , Philippe Coiffet, Virtual Reality Technology, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, NY, 2003
• 4: Bruce Campbell , Paul Collins , Hunter Hadaway , Nick Hedley , Mark Stoermer, Web3D in ocean science learning environments: virtual big beef creek, Proceeding of the seventh international conference on 3D Web technology, p.85-91, February 24-28, 2002, Tempe, Arizona, USA [doi>10.1145/504502.504517]
• 5: Eric Cronin , Burton Filstrup , Anthony R. Kurc , Sugih Jamin, An efficient synchronization mechanism for mirrored game architectures, Proceedings of the 1st workshop on Network and system support for games, p.67-73, April 16-17, 2002, Bruanschweig, Germany [doi>10.1145/566500.566510]
• 6: Manuel Oliveira , Jon Crowcroft , Mel Slater, Component framework infrastructure for virtual environments, Proceedings of the third international conference on Collaborative virtual environments, p.139-146, September 2000, San Francisco, California, United States [doi>10.1145/351006.351030]
• 7: Doug Twilleager , Jeff Kesselman , Athomas Goldberg , Daniel Petersen , Juan Carlos Soto , Chris Melissinos, Java technologies for games, Computers in Entertainment (CIE), v.2 n.2, April 2004 [doi>10.1145/1008213.1008242]
• 8: Yutaka Ishibashi , Shuji Tasaka, Causality and media synchronization control for networked multimedia games: centralized versus distributed, Proceedings of the 2nd workshop on Network and system support for games, p.42-51, May 22-23, 2003, Redwood City, California [doi>10.1145/963900.963904]
• 9: Frederick W.B. Li , Lewis W.F. Li , Rynson W.H. Lau, Supporting continuous consistency in multiplayer online games, Proceedings of the 12th annual ACM international conference on Multimedia, October 10-16, 2004, New York, NY, USA [doi>10.1145/1027527.1027619]
• 10: Steve Pettifer , Adrian West, Subjectivity and the relaxing of synchronization in networked virtual environments, Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology, p.170-171, December 20-22, 1999, London, United Kingdom [doi>10.1145/323663.323695]
• 11: Whiskey Source Code, http://www.cem.uvm.edu/~medialab/Fall04/ee214/Java3D/ (accessed January 20, 2005).

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems
          Subjects: Client/server

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.3 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES
      D.3.3 Language Constructs and Features
          Subjects: Input/output

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Languages, Measurement, Performance

Keywords:
java, non-blocking I/O, synchronization, virtual environments