| LivingSpace is an implementation of the Web3D
Consortium's Living
Worlds Working Group's draft specification for the use of the Virtual
Reality Modelling Language (VRML) to support multi-user Virtual
Environments. The system implementation is based around the the Keryx
Internet Notification System and is the most compliant
The focus of the LivingSpace applications was on collaborative
workspaces. Each user is represented in the real-time 3D
environment by an avatar. Certain avatar animations, such as
walking, are generated automatically while others such as gestures are
triggered by the user. Interaction with the environment was
entirely through a point and click mouse interface. |
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LivingSpace was integrated with TalkSpace,
a distributed 3D audio rendering solution that creates and manages a shared
audio environment using spatially mixed Voice-over-IP streams. The speech
from each user was spatially located with their visual avatar so that the voice
appeared to come from that avatar.
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One of the environments developed to demonstrate the system consisted of
a multi-user world containing a shared slideboard. The slideboard
enabled the display of images, such as exported Powerpoint
presentations. The slide show could be manipulated by any user
simultaneously or, for control freaks, locked so that only one user
could change the slides. Coloured pens were also provided that
enabled users to markup the slides, useful when discussing specific
points. An external interface was also provided that enabled
images to be injected from or sent to external applications. |
| This short video is shot from the
perspective of one user as he watches the actions of another represented
by the Dilbert avatar in the environment. The long interaction
sequence between the two users has been edited but you may spot some red
inked annotations on a couple of the slides.
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click to enlarge
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More Information
Hawkes R. and Wray M.J. (1999) “LivingSpace:
A Living Worlds Implementation using an Event-based Architecture”,
HP
Labs Technical Report HPL-98-181
Low C. and Babarit L. (1998) "Distributed 3D Audio
Rendering", HP Labs Technical Report HPL-98-11
Wray M.J. and Belrose V. (1998) "Avatars in
LivingSpace", Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium on Virtual Reality
Modeling Language, 1999, Paderborn, Germany. pp13-19. HPL-98-182
(video)
Wray M.J. and Hawkes R. (1998) “LivingSpace:
Distributed Virtual Environments and VRML: an Event-based Architecture”,
Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, 30: 43-51. (slides,
video)
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