Toward a User-Centered Method for Studying CVEs for Learning

This chapter addresses one of the challenges the collaborative virtual environments (CVEs) research community faces which is the lack of a systematic approach to study social interaction in CVEs, determine requirements for CVE systems design, and inform the CVE systems design. It does this by presenting a method for studying multi-user systems in an educational context. The method has been developed as part of the Senet project, which is investigating the use of virtual actors in CVEs for learning. Groupware prototypes are studied in order to identify requirements and design factors for CVEs. The method adopts a rigorous approach for organizing experimental settings, collecting and analysing data, and informing CVE systems design. The analysis part of the method shares many of the Interaction Analysis foci and expands on it by providing a grid-based method of transforming rich qualitative data in a quantitative form. The outcome of this analysis is used for the derivation of design guidelines that can inform the construction of CVEs for learning. The method is described by a third phase of work in the Senet project.

Construction of Collaborative Virtual Environments

In this chapter, we give an overview of some of the issues that face programmers and designers when building collaborative virtual environments (CVEs). We do this by highlighting three aspects of CVE system software: the environment model (data structures, behaviour description) that the system provides, the data-sharing mechanism (how the environment model is shared), and the implementation framework (the structure of a typical client or platform in terms of the services it provides to the user). When a CVE system is designed, choices have to be made for each of these aspects, and this then constrains how the designers and programmers go about constructing the CVE worlds themselves. We present the main body of the overview by using examples that highlight many of the important differences between CVE systems. We will also relate our discussion to the common topics of network topology and awareness management.

SENDA

The use of virtual environments (VEs) is increasing rapidly, and people are demanding easier and more credible ways to interact with these new sites. We define VEs as a special kind of 3D virtual environment, inhabited by avatars which represent humans in the VE, or even autonomous agents. This kind of software was selected because of its increasing importance as the new future trend in interactive software applications. From a software engineering point of view, VEs can be seen as a special kind of information system, so they must be analyzed, designed, and implemented in this respect. Our aim is to improve software engineering’s traditional software processes to achieve quality VEs. In this chapter, we present a framework called SENDA, which defines a formal process model to develop VEs.

A Methodology of Design for Virtual Environments

This chapter undertakes a methodological study of virtual environments (VEs), a specific subset of interactive systems. It takes as a central theme the tension between the engineering and aesthetic notions of VE design. First of all method is defined in terms of underlying model, language, process model, and heuristics. The underlying model is characterized as an integration of Interaction Machines and Semiotics with the intention to make the design tension work to the designer’s benefit rather than trying to eliminate it. The language is then developed as a juxtaposition of UML and the integration of a range of semiotics-based theories. This leads to a discussion of a process model and the activities that comprise it. The intention throughout is not to build a particular VE design method, but to investigate the methodological concerns and constraints such a method should address.

Real Living with Virtual Worlds

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of many current applications, this chapter discusses how to make virtual worlds (VWs) “real-world capable.” With sufficiently realistic data and dynamic processing capabilities within VWs, we could do medical interventions, analysis, engineering, invention, and design. This will require creating systems with sophisticated integration and analysis capabilities in order to suitably and continually scale up VWs with rich data sources, such as live data feeds and mobile sensors, and better computational and mechanical capabilities, such as multi-sensory interfaces and telerobotics. Scaling VWs will require new strategies and capabilities for the numerousness and variety of resources.

An Agent-Based Architecture for Virtual Environments for Training

This chapter proposes an architecture for the development of intelligent virtual environments for training (IVETs) which is based on a collection of cooperative software agents. The first level of the architecture is defined as an extension of the classical intelligent tutoring system architecture that adds a new world module. Several software agents are then identified within each module. They communicate among them directly via messages and indirectly via a common data structure that is used for the collaborative development of plans. Some details are provided about the most remarkable interactions that will be established among agents during the system’s execution. The proposed architecture, and its realization in a platform of generic and configurable agents, will facilitate the design and implementation of new IVETs, maximizing the reuse of existing components and the extensibility of the system to add new functionalities.

Steps Toward a Design Theory for Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds, construed in a broad enough sense to include text-based systems, as well as video games, new media, augmented reality, and user interfaces of all kinds, are increasingly important in scientific research, entertainment, communication, commerce, and art. However, we lack scientific theories that can adequately support the design of such virtual worlds, even in simple cases. Semiotics would seem a natural source for such theories, but this field lacks the precision needed for engineering applications, and also fails to addresses interaction and social issues, both of which are crucial for applications to communication and collaboration. This chapter suggests an approach called algebraic semiotics to help solve these and related problems, by providing precise application-oriented basic concepts such as sign, representation, and representation quality, and a calculus of representation that includes blending. This chapter also includes some theory for narrative and metaphor, and case studies on information visualization, proof presentation, humor, and user interaction.

A Component-Oriented Approach for Mixed Reality Applications

This chapter introduces a component-oriented approach for developing mixed reality (MR) applications. After a short definition of mixed reality, we present two possible solutions for a component-oriented framework. Both solutions have been implemented in two different MR projects (SAVE and AMIRE). The first project, SAVE, is a safety training system for virtual environments, whereas the goal of the AMIRE project is to develop different authoring tools for mixed reality applications. A component-oriented solution allows developers to implement better designed MR applications, and it fosters the reusability of existing MR software solutions (often called MR gems). Finally, it supports the implementation of adequate visual authoring tools that help end users to develop their own MR applications with no programming skills.

Design of Believable Intelligent Virtual Agents

Virtual environments (VEs) have a set of characteristics that make them hard to be designed and implemented: distributed nature, high-level graphical design, technology novelty, and so forth. Because of the criticism or the repetitiveness of some roles played in them, some of the characters of the VEs usually must be automated. The risk is to pay a too high price, losing attractiveness, usability, or believability. The solution proposed in this chapter is to control the automated avatars by associating them with software agents, becoming intelligent virtual agents (IVAs). With this aim, an architecture to manage the perception and cognition of the agent is described. On one hand, the perceptual module of this architecture consists of a human-like model, based on one of the most successful awareness models in computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW), called the Spatial Model of Interaction (SMI). On the other hand, the cognitive module proposes an easy-to-configure structure, providing it with the precise mechanisms to exhibit reactive, deliberative or, even, more sophisticated social behaviors, incrementing the believability of the IVA in the VE.

Conceptual Modeling of Virtual Environments Using Hypermedia Design Techniques

Traditionally, the development of virtual environments has been tightly dependent on the programmer’s skills to manage the available toolkits and authoring systems. In such a scenario, the discussion of different design alternatives, future changes and maintenance, interoperability, and software reuse are all of them costly and quite difficult. In order to overcome this unsystematic and technology-driven process, conceptual modeling has to be included just before the implementation phase to provide a shared representation language that facilitates the communication among the different team members, including stakeholders, as well as the reuse and redesign for future requirements since conceptual models hide implementation details and constraints, and are cheaper and easier to produce than prototypes. As a first attempt to attain these aims, this chapter presents the basis of a constructional approach for the VE conceptual modeling through a set of complementary design views related to the VE components and functions. Moreover, we explore how these design issues might be addressed by hypermedia modeling techniques, given the similarities between these two kinds of interactive systems and the maturity reached in hypermedia development.