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ABSTRACT

We present a system for collecting content from 3D multi-user virtual worlds for use in a cross-world search engine, an enabling technology for linking virtual worlds to the wider web. We use an intelligent agent crawler designed to collect user-generated content without relying on access to private internal server databases. The agents navigate autonomously through the world and interact with content to discover regions, parcels of land within regions, user-created objects, other avatars, and user associations. The experiments we performed are the first which focus on the content within a large virtual world. Our results show that virtual worlds can be effectively crawled using autonomous agent crawlers that emulate normal user behavior. Additionally, we find that the collection of interactive content enhances our ability to identify dynamic, immersive environments within the world.

REFERENCES

• 1: Artz, J. M. 2009, The Current State and Future Potential of Virtual Worlds. In International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, 1, 1, IGI Global.
• 2: Ravi Kumar , Jasmine Novak , Andrew Tomkins, Structure and evolution of online social networks, Proceedings of the 12th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining, August 20-23, 2006, Philadelphia, PA, USA [doi>10.1145/1150402.1150476]
• 3: SEARCH API 2009. Second Life Wiki. March 4, 2009, wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/SearchAPI.
• 4: Varvello, M., Picconi, F., Diot, C., and E. Biersack, E. 2008. Is There Life in Second Life? Thomson Technical Report CR-PRL-2008-07-0002, Thomson.
• 5: Ding Zhou , Jiang Bian , Shuyi Zheng , Hongyuan Zha , C. Lee Giles, Exploring social annotations for information retrieval, Proceeding of the 17th international conference on World Wide Web, April 21-25, 2008, Beijing, China [doi>10.1145/1367497.1367594]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.7 Digital Libraries
          Subjects: Collection

Additional Classification:
  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Virtual reality

Keywords:
3D web, search engine, virtual worlds