Large scale collaborative virtual environments

Collaborative virtual environments are multi-user virtual realities which actively support communication and co-operation.

This book addresses the theory, design, realisation and evaluation of such systems, with a particular emphasis on support for large numbers of distributed users.

A broad approach is taken, which ranges from the sociology of interpersonal communication to the management of communication in distributed systems.

The emphasis on multi-user environments distinguishes this book from the many general books on virtual reality which only deal with single-user systems.

This book presents: models of multi-party awareness and interaction in space-based systems detailed designs of two prototypes (MASSIVE-1 and MASSIVE-2); experiences with collaborative virtual environments created using these; and analyses of the corresponding network requirements.

Many of these results and ideas are applicable to other systems and approaches.