Realizing Semantic Virtual Environments with Ontology and Pluggable Procedures

Abstract

Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) has attracted much attention recently due to theincreasing number of users and potential applications. Fig. 1 shows the common components that a MUVE system may provide. Generally speaking, a MUVE refers to a virtual world that allows multiple users to log in concurrently and interact with each other by texts or graphics provided by the system. On-line games can be considered as a special kind of virtual environment with specific characters, episode, and ways of interactions. Other MUVE systems such as SecondLife provide a general framework for users to design their own 3D contents and interact with other users through their avatars in a more general way. Although the users are allowed to build their own world, the animations that can be displayed are limited to those that have been prepared by the system. In addition, due to the lack of semantic information, it is not feasible to design virtual avatars that are controlled by the computer to interact with other avatars.