From IEEE VW Standard Working Group

Contents 1 Metaverse Standards Overview 1.1 Definition of a Virtual Environment 1.2 Vision 1.3 Mission 1.4 Scope 1.5 Purpose 1.6 Working Group Leaders 1.7 Additional Contributors 1.8 Social Media 1.9 Current Assignments 1.10 Need for the project 1.11 Additional Explanatory Notes 1.12 Further Information 1.13 Virtual World Model 1.14 Current Internal Projects 1.14.1 Current Internal Projects List 1.15 References and Additional Information 1.15.1 Existing Environment Components 1.15.2 Existing Working Groups 1.15.3 Virtual World Minimum Requirements 1.15.4 Industry Use Case Scenarios 1.15.5 Extant Virtual Worlds 1.15.6 Virtual World Peripherals 1.15.7 Architectural and Design Principles 1.15.8 Terminology and Definitions 1.15.9 Interoperability 1.15.10 Life Cycle 1.16 Category

Metaverse Standards Overview

The IEEE Virtual World Standard Working Group (P1828) is focused on the development of common standards for virtual environments. From assets to protocols and general working models in order to facilitate the common interoperability scenario for all virtual environments in the future. Our working group members are dedicated to multiple phases within this process in order to accumulate further details and application methodologies over time.

Definition of a Virtual Environment

A synthetic environment consisting of virtual spaces containing objects, inhabitants, and their relationships, which exists in virtually-defined time. A Virtual environment can also provide a platform for "Serious Games", "Simulations", or "Video Games". Virtual Worlds are intended for its users to inhabit and interact, and the term today has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of avatars visible to others graphically.

Vision

Provide an overarching Model and corresponding Standards for Systems of Virtual Worlds and Metaverse immersive Environments.

Mission

The Metaverse Standards group is developing standards for virtual environments. The first phase is documenting all known components and technical processes of a virtual world, identify extant standards for sub components, identify standards in development that address these requirements and finally identify the components from this list that should be in a common metaverse standard.

Scope

This standard is an over-arching standard for virtual environments. The over-arching standard provides a reference model and covers subsequent standards for virtual worlds. This standard establishes terminology for the Virtual Environment (VE) components and systems. The reference model covers addresses, interfaces and/or communication protocols between and among system components. Components include supporting devices, like servers, reality engines/environments, virtual objects including avatars, and scripts. This standard defines processes, conventions and protocols to promote interoperability objects between and among virtualenvironments and networked resources. This standard is application agnostic but will provide illustrative use cases.

Purpose

The purpose of this standard is to promote leverage (software and data reuse) of work between virtual project developments and promote shared resources. Another purpose of this standard is to establish the means to incorporate the respective strengths of different virtual environments.

Working Group Leaders

ROLE	NAME	PROFILE	EMAIL	SKYPE NAME	PHONE
Chair	Tom Starai	LinkedIn	tom@starai.net	thomas.starai	703-927-5328
Vice Chair	Kevin Simkins	Google+	kevinsimkins@gmail.com	kevin.simkins	312-208-0852
Vice Chair	Will Burns	Google+	darianknight@gmail.com	darianknight	973-500-8814
Architecture Lead	Peter Finn	LinkedIn	peter_finn@hotmail.com	peter.finn	416-802-9979
Editor	William Glascoe	LinkedIn	eosocxo@comcast.net	supracxo	240-305-6733
Identity Lead	Greg Shreve
Security Lead and Wiki Sysop	CG Anderson	LinkedIn	IEEEVWwikiSysop@gmail.com	cg.andersonusa
Sensors	Kyle Gomboy	LinkedIn	create@reactiongrid.com	pcmash	407 992 8284

Additional Contributors

ORGANIZATION	NAME	PROFILE	EMAIL	SKYPE NAME	PHONE
Perpetual Studios	Jon Bee	www.perpetualstudios.com	mr.jbee@gmail.com	the.jon.bee	479-685-9372
Luminarete	Mike Schoenfeld	LinkedIn	michaelaschoenfeld@gmail.com		317-345-3373

Social Media

Name	Twitter	Facebook	Google+	LinkedIn	Diaspora	Blog
Tom Starai	@tomstarai	Tom Starai	http://gplus.to/TomStarai	http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomstarai
Kevin Simkins	@KevinSimkins	kevin.simkins	http://gplus.to/KevinSimkins	http://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinsimkins
Will Burns	@DarianKnight	darianknight	http://gplus.to/WillBurns	http://www.linkedin.com/in/wgburns	Will Burns	http://blog.andromeda3d.com
Peter Finn	@Nink	Peter Finn	http://gplus.to/PeterFinn	peter-finn
William Glascoe				William Glascoe
CG Anderson				cganderson
Kyle Gomboy				ReactionGrid
Jon Bee	@Jon__Bee	mr.jbee	http://gplus.to/JonBee	Jonathan Bee

Current Assignments

Section	Assigned	Commitment for INSERT NEW TARGET DATE
0) Migrate document from Wiki	Jeremy Squires	COMPLETE (May 11)
1) Overview
2) Informative References	CG Anderson	clean up and fill out full (Sept 1)
3) Normative references	CG Anderson	clean up and fill out full (Sept 1)
4) Definitions	CG Anderson	clean up/edit (Sept 1), more to do still
5) Reference Model	Tom Starai	Update Reference Model (May 11)
6) Components
7) Architecture and Design	William Glascoe	Update Archtiecture and Design (May 11)
8) Interoperability	Peter Finn	Draft Interoperability for Objects and Avatars (May 11)
9) Avatars
10a) Objects	Peter Finn	Update Object in relation to Interop (May 11)
10b) Objects	Jeremy Squires	Update Semantec Metadata COMPLETE (May 11)
11) Digital Assets
12) Environments
13) Out World Objects
14) minimum Requirements
General Items	CG Anderson	clean up formatting (partial), create consistent headings, create TOC, create appendix for security information (Sept 1)

Need for the project

Virtual Environments are new and unique spaces with resources, properties and characteristics that need a standard taxonomy. Important aspects of virtual environments need to be clarified to allow greater use of the technology as it evolves. As virtual environments reveal opportunities for growing applications, the strengths of various environments can be exploited effectively. Objects need to be shared among environments for a common purpose. The strengths of environments need to be expressed. The interfaces to networked resources need to be standardized for common use, potentially service oriented architecture.

Additional Explanatory Notes

The environments, industries and application space for which this standard applies are numerous. Illustrative use cases will be provided in the standard. Applications include educations (virtual classrooms), social business modes, immersive training, serious games and 3D simulations. The 3D visualization and interactive GUI will be addressed as important features with aspects to be improved with standardization. Virtual Environments include user content and developer content. This standard will reference IEEE/ISO 15288, IEEE 12207, IEEE 1220, IEEE 1278 and IEEE 1516 as appropriate and build on work at the Federal Consortium for Virtual Worlds (FCVW at the National Defense University's iCollege, IETF, the many commercial ventures and academic interests. The guiding principle is to create a standard that enables integrated virtual environments and applications.

Further Information

Further information concerning the P1828 Working Group can be found on the IEEE Standards Association page.

Virtual World Model

The Virtual World Model is the collection of Virtual Worlds Standards that are placed at the different levels of the Open Systems Interconnection(OSI) Reference Model. Each Standard focuses on that specific layer and must work with the layers below it.

The technologies to render user-defined (animation) and physics-generated (simulation) virtual objects and their behaviors (graphic, acoustic, haptic, gustatory and olfactory) are part of virtual reality (VR) more than virtual worlds. Tracking humans and their avatars as they transverse virtual environments (i.e., artificial nature--skies, lands, bodies of water, plants and animals) are part of VR too. Their is no parity in fidelity between the human sensory organs' dynamic range, input devices, output devices, computing machines executing procedural and declarative languages, and networks of computing machinery hosting virtual environments with virtual objects including humanoids. We will attempt to reconcile the disparities, say from 01 Jan 2001 to 01 Jan 2010 (10 years) in the five senses, I/O devices, software, and computing machinery to illustrate the relative rates of technological advance in realism (precision, accuracy, duration, capacity, dynamic range), device prices, etc.

Virtual World Model

Current Internal Projects

The purpose of the Internal Projects section is to offer methods of public demonstration concerning the varied approaches and issues with which we are addressing within the Virtual World Standard group. Below, you will find a public list of ongoing internal projects and initial descriptions for reference. For further information or a live demonstration, please feel free to contact one of our Project Leaders listed on this page.

Current Internal Projects List

Codename: Project Stargate | PS:1 (Version 1) and currently PS:2 (Version 2)

Interdimensional Pong

References and Additional Information

Existing Environment Components

Virtual World Functions and Components

Existing Working Groups

Groups Developing Standards

Common Technology Used

Virtual World Minimum Requirements

Minimum Requirements

Industry Use Case Scenarios

Use Case

Extant Virtual Worlds

Virtual Worlds

Virtual World Peripherals

Products

Architectural and Design Principles

Scaleability

Integration

Communications

Interfaces

Federation

Reuse

User Generated Content

Accessibility

Digital Rights Management

Security Considerations and Issues

Terminology and Definitions

Terminology and Definitions

Interoperability

The purpose of the Interoperability scope is to acknowledge and define common ground for all virtual environment systems by which their communications protocols and assets may be interchangeable for the end-user with appropriate access rights. In order to ensure this, multiple means of interoperability are addressed in kind as Open, Limited or Proprietary methodologies, with a goal to foster the use of open standards on a wide scale.

Proof of Concept

Interfaces

Common Technology

Script Standards

Cross Domain Considerations

Life Cycle

“Virtual World lifecycle process descriptions”, a standard developed by the IEEE that defines a “Usability Maturity Model”, a set of practices in the design lifecycle process of a system to be VW-centered and involve appropriate evaluation. The VW standard shall define individual components within these primary steps:

• Ensure VW-centered design content in system strategy
• Plan and manage the VW-centered design process
• Specify the stakeholder and organizational requirements
• Understand and specify the context of use
• Produce architectural and design solutions
• Evaluate designs against requirements
• Introduce and operate the system

Sytems Engineering

Test and Evaluation

Configuration Management

Category

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