The blue-c distributed scene graph

ABSTRACT

In this paper we present a distributed scene graph architecture for use in the blue-c, a novel collaborative immersive virtual environment. We extend the widely used OpenGL Performer toolkit to provide a distributed scene graph maintaining full synchronization down to vertex and texel level. We propose a synchronization scheme including customizable, relaxed locking mechanisms. Our distributed scene graph includes both locally stored nodes for static scene data as well as nodes shared across multiple sites, thus minimizing synchronization overhead. We discuss the performance and demonstrate the functionality of our toolkit with two prototype applications in our high-performance virtual reality and visual simulation environment.

REFERENCES

• 1: Jérémie Allard , Valérie Gouranton , Loïck Lecointre , Emmanuel Melin , Bruno Raffin, Net Juggler: Running VR Juggler with Multiple Displays on a Commodity Component Cluster, Proceedings of the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2002, p.273, March 24-28, 2002
• 2: R. Braden, L. Zhang, S. Berson, S. Herzog, and S. Jamin. "Resource ReSerVation Protocol (RSVP)." RFC 2205, Sept. 1997.
• 3: "Audio/Video Stream Specification." Object Management Group, Jan. 2000.
• 4: "IEEE standard for information technology - protocols for distributed simulation applications: Entity information and interaction." IEEE Standard 1278-1993, 1993.
• 5: E. Frécon and M. Stenius. "DIVE: A scaleable network architecture for distributed virtual environments." Distributed Systems Engineering Journal, 5:91--100, Sept. 1998. Special Issue on Distributed Virtual Environments.
• 6: Thomas A. Funkhouser, RING: a client-server system for multi-user virtual environments, Proceedings of the 1995 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics, p.85-ff., April 09-12, 1995, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/199404.199418]
• 7: Gerd Hesina , Dieter Schmalstieg , Anton Furhmann , Werner Purgathofer, Distributed Open Inventor: a practical approach to distributed 3D graphics, Proceedings of the ACM symposium on Virtual reality software and technology, p.74-81, December 20-22, 1999, London, United Kingdom [doi>10.1145/323663.323675]
• 8: "Standard for Modeling and Simulation (M&S) High Level Architecture (HLA) - Framework and Rules." IEEE Standard 1516, September 2000.
• 9: Daniel F. Keefe , Daniel Acevedo Feliz , Tomer Moscovich , David H. Laidlaw , Joseph J. LaViola, Jr., CavePainting: a fully immersive 3D artistic medium and interactive experience, Proceedings of the 2001 symposium on Interactive 3D graphics, p.85-93, March 2001 [doi>10.1145/364338.364370]
• 10: Andreas M. Kunz , Christian P. Spagno, Simultaneous Projection and Picture Acquisition for a Distributed Collaborative Environment, Proceedings of the IEEE Virtual Reality Conference 2002, p.279, March 24-28, 2002
• 11: J. Leigh, A. E. Johnson, and T. A. DeFanti. "CAVERN: A distributed architecture for supporting scalable persistence and interoperability in collaborative virtual environments." Journal of Virtual Reality Research, Development and Applications, 2(2):217--237, Dec. 1997. The Virtual Reality Society.
• 12: M.R. Macedonia, M.J. Zyda, D. R. Pratt, P. T. Barham, and S. Zeswitz. "NPSNET: A Network Software Architecture for Large Scale Virtual Environments." Presence, 3(4), Fall 1994.
• 13: Blair MacIntyre , Steven Feiner, A distributed 3D graphics library, Proceedings of the 25th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.361-370, July 1998 [doi>10.1145/280814.280935]
• 14: S. Mungee, N. Surendran, Y.Krishnamurthy, and D.C. Schmidt. The Design and Performance of a CORBA Audio/Video Streaming Service, chapter in Design and Management of Multimedia Information Systems: Opportunities and Challenges. Idea Group Publishing, 2000.
• 15: D. Reiners, G. Voss, and J.Behr. "OpenSG - Basic concepts." 1. OpenSG Symposium, 2002.
• 16: John Rohlf , James Helman, IRIS performer: a high performance multiprocessing toolkit for real-time 3D graphics, Proceedings of the 21st annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.381-394, July 1994 [doi>10.1145/192161.192262]
• 17: B.Schaeffer. "Networking and management for cluster-based graphics." http://www.isl.uiuc.edu, Mar. 2002.
• 18: H. Schulzrinne, S. Casner, R. Frederick, and V. Jacobson. "RTP: A Transport Protocol for RealTime Applications." RFC 1889, Jan. 1996.
• 19: Sandeep Singhal , Michael Zyda, Networked virtual environments: design and implementation, ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., New York, NY, 1999
• 20: Oliver G. Staadt , Markus H. Gross , Andreas Kunz , Markus Meier, The blue-C (poster session): integrating real humans into a networked immersive environment, Proceedings of the third international conference on Collaborative virtual environments, p.201-202, September 2000, San Francisco, California, United States [doi>10.1145/351006.351047]
• 21: Paul S. Strauss , Rikk Carey, An object-oriented 3D graphics toolkit, Proceedings of the 19th annual conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques, p.341-349, July 1992
• 22: Henrik Tramberend, Avocado: A Distributed Virtual Reality Framework, Proceedings of the IEEE Virtual Reality, p.14, March 13-17, 1999
• 23: Brian Whetten , Todd Montgomery , Simon M. Kaplan, A High Performance Totally Ordered Multicast Protocol, Selected Papers from the International Workshop on Theory and Practice in Distributed Systems, p.33-57, September 05-09, 1994
• 24: Stephan Würmlin , Edouard Lamboray , Oliver G. Staadt , Markus H. Gross, 3D Video Recorder, Proceedings of the 10th Pacific Conference on Computer Graphics and Applications, p.325, October 09-11, 2002

INDEX TERMS

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

Keywords:
collaborative virtual environments, distributed graphics, networked virtual reality, scene graph