Open Virtual Worlds: Understanding the Wonderland Project

Blogged from the NMC 2008 Summer Conference

Project Wonderland is an open source toolkit for creating 3D virtual worlds . It features immersive audio, live application sharing, and a high degree of extensibility that allows virtual world developers to create unique, interactive experiences. This technology, still in the early stages of development, is freely available for experimentation and proof-of-concept projects and is the centerpiece of the Open Virtual Worlds Project initiative with the New Media Consortium .
 
Presenters

• Kevin Roebuck, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Jonathan Kaplan, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Jordan Slott, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
• Stuart Sim, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

My Thoughts

This VW has great potential. The underlying thought is solid. However, the product is far from complete. Many of the underlying "guts" are being rebuilt this summer and fall to make them better. Some of the core technologies - Java to build it, X-Windows to bring in apps may prove a hindrance to higher-ed environments that don't use these technologies to a great extent.

This is not a turn-key product. It's open source, so you will need to have a number of people with technical savvy in open source environments to get this up and running. Customization will require at least a small group of people dedicated to custom coding, installation, etc. The flip size of this is because it's open source, as the community builds and code samples are added to the community, you'll be able to find code close to or exactly what you need.

This is a product worth watching. I think it needs another year or two of development before I'd be comfortable using it.

Notes:

Problem

34K people in all countries. People work at home, on the road, etc. 50% out of office on any given day. Telephone, etc., not engaging.

F2F conversations were always better between managers/employees - they found out more about the person, not just the employee.

Solution

A virtual world as a collaboration env. within a business. High emotional bandwidth in these environments.

Started as an internal project, is now open source. Built on Project Darkstar & JAVA.

Why 3d?

 - True informal conversations with high emotional bandwidth
 - Space provides context - The real world mapped to the virtual world helps us contextualize what we're doing.
   - 3D is natural
 - Potential for back-channel conversations.

Wonderland Design Goals

1. Focus on strong social interaction.
2. Design for Collaboration
  - Seamless document sharing - no need to switch contexts. The world should be the only thing you need.
3. Extreme Extensibility
  - Make it easy to build new tools into the environment.

What is Wonderland?

 - A 100% free JAVA open-source toolkit for building 3D immersive virtual worlds.

Core Features

 - 3D environment with avatars
 - Live app sharing
 - Integration w/ business data
 - Darkstar Scalability - large to small
   - Develop locally, share globally
 - Open and extensible
 - Audio as core feature
 - Extensive telephony integration

Demo Observations

• Similar to Second Life. Graphics not as refined.
• Cone of silence. Yes, like in Get Smart, but it actually works.
• You can record a conversation and play it back in 3D!
• Can bring any X-Windows app into the world in it's own window and interact with it.
• Nice audio controls for speakers - you stand on a magic square and your voice is projected, just like you are miked.
• Comes with a PDF viewer. Save your presentation as PDF and show it easily. Audience can synchronize/unsynchronize from the speaker/current slide as needed.
• Telephony is neat - you call in and show up as an orb. Avatars can then pick up the orb and carry it wherever needed.
• Sound integration is robust and well-thought out.
• No avatar inventory.

Technical Specs for Design, Development, Implementation

Server - Build on Project Darkstar
  - Back-end gaming platform.
    - For games
    - scalable
    - handles persistence
    - set of core services

Client - Project Wonderland
  - Open source Java 3D-based graphics engine
  - Manages world, animation, avatars
  - Supports app sharing (Java and X-apps for now)
  - Extensible and customizable

World - MPK20 - Sun's Virtual Workplace
  - World customized to support Sun's distributed workforce
  - Includes apps for sharing and collaboration.

Tech Requirements to Use the CLient

 - Modern Gaming Hardware

High-Level Conceptualization of Structure

  - World Cells to
    - Room Cells
      - Object Cells

Done for rendering and processor use. If you don't need a room cell, then you don't need any object cells inside of it.

If you create a new extension, you are creating a new cell type.

Making 3D Stuff

Use commercial apps.
Wonderland File System (WFS)
  - Reference to 3D files Stored as directories and XML files

Timeline

Fall 08 - release 0.5
2009 - 1.0

For More Info

Project Wonderland Site - http://wonderland.dev.java.net

Project Blog - http://blogs.sun.com/wonderland

MPK20 - Suns Virtual Workplace - http://research.sun.com/projects/mc/mpk20.html