Open source virtual environments living server-free
June 15, 2009
Most people familiar with the Second Life grid are also aware of the existence of OpenSim technology, commonly thought of as the Open Source alternative to Second Life.
With OpenSim, you can create your own virtual environment grid without needing to pay for licensing. The grid can be made open to the public, or be kept private, only available to those on your side of the firewall.
What is the difference, then, between the OpenSim concept, and that of Open Cobalt and Solipsis? Essentially, OpenSim grids are designed to be served from a common point. Open Cobalt and Solipsis implementations are designed to be served from many points – they are both peer-to-peer technologies.
Open Cobalt: specific market niche
Open Cobalt consists of two parts: a browser and a toolkit. The browser is used to view the 3D virtual workspaces created with the toolkit. Each workspace can live on a separate personal computer. Workspaces are real time and computationally dynamic, and each can host multiple participants. Additionally, individual workspaces can be interlinked into a private and secure network of workspaces.
Open Cobalt is based on Croquet technology. Squeak is an open source software development environment for Smalltalk-80 programming purposes; the Croquet system is derived from Squeak. The Croquet system features a peer-based messaging protocol that eliminates the dependence of a virtual environment upon a single server or server cluster, and that fosters the creation of highly collaborative workspaces. The Croquet software developer’s kit (SDK) was released in 2007, after which development under the Croquet umbrella ceased. Further development of Croquet has continued under the Open Cobalt banner.
Open Cobalt has a number of very attractive features, particularly for researchers, educators and students:
- Open source licensing (MIT).
- Deeply malleable, collaborative space.
- Runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
- Internet access is not required; it can run over LANs and Intranets.
- Private environments can be created. This eliminates the incidence of griefing by outsiders.
- Public environment can be created. This brings richness and diversity to learning environments.
- In-world text, voice and video chat, web browsing (VNC allows access to browsers like Firefox) and annotations.
- Access to remote applications via VNC.
- Navigation between virtual workspaces is possible using 3D hyperlinks.
- Workspaces can be easily saved and restored.
- Mesh, texture, media, and whole avatar imports are possible.
Open Cobalt was started in January of 2008 by Julian Lombardi and Mark P. McCahill of Duke University. The pre-alpha release of Cobalt (downloadable here) was announced in June 2008. Since then, Open Cobalt has progressed in leaps and bounds, featuring more functionality and more extensibility. The beta release is due this year, and a full implementation is expected to be released in 2010.
Solipsis: our market niche includes everyone.
Solipsis is also open source, and also features de-centralisation of computational work and data storage. Nonetheless, its background, implementation and philosophies are of course quite different from those of Open Cobalt.
Solipsis has been developed by French R&D partners Orange R&D, Artefacto, Archivideo, IRISA and the Université de Rennes II. The product, which has been available for download for some time, is currently in beta testing, though that is slated to be completed soon.
The Solipsis 3D project grew out a prior 2D project; the 2D browser also featured a peer-to-peer facility, and thus allowed users to engage in chat sessions without the use of centralised servers.
Beginning in 2006, with a time-line of 30 months to completion, the Solipsis 3D universe and the advanced modelling tools should now be available.
The Solipsis team has a rather grand notion of the position it will hold in the future: they desire it to replace and greatly extend the Web as it exists today. Far more than just creating a metaverse in which to communicate and collaborate with other people, they also see Solipsis as a potential way to store and present data in a more meaningful way than the conventional Web does now. Additionally, they hope that Solipsis will conquer scalability issues, promote usage and creation of high-bandwidth services, and that it will be self-organising – any part that is cut off from the rest of the metaverse will be self-sustaining.
The Solipsis GUI presents as both a stand-alone navigator, and as a Firefox plug-in and ActiveX component.
Popularity: 2% [?]
New Zealand OpenSim grid on the way
August 19, 2008
I stumbled across a communication from a consortium of New Zealand Universities, who are making a public call for support for their proposal (which is reproduced in full below):
I’ve been asked as a contributor to OpenSim to pass along the following.
There is a bid going on for a new public project in NZ, through the University of Otago, and the principles (researchers at the university) are making a general call for support for their bid.
If you could sign a letter of support for this bid within the end of the week, please forward it to me, and I will pass it on.
“Support” can be any thing of your choosing, and is non-binding. Samples are appended to this email.
I have been authorized to pass along the following excerpt from the application:
Executive Summary
Project Title: National Virtual World Grid
Project overview
Rationale for the project
The National Virtual World Grid (NVWG) project will develop an open access national virtual world grid based and bring together a community of researchers and educators with an interest in playing an innovative role in the development and usage of the next wave of the Internet: Web3.D.
Continual advances in telecommunications bandwidth and computer processing power are already giving users a more multimedia-intensive experience on the Web. Now with the advent of online virtual worlds (e.g. Google Lively, Second Life) we have the harbinger of the next wave of the
Internet: Web3.D, where users inhabit and participate in a 3D Virtual World (VW) by means of their
personal in-world avatars. An IT industry research and advisory company, Gartner, has predicted that by 2011, 80% of all Internet participants will be regular users of Web3.D technology. Already over 500 US universities are offering courses of instruction in Second Life, and major companies are
getting involved too (e.g. Vodafone, IBM, TelstraClear, Sun). The commercial nature of the most widely used Virtual World implementations, such as Second Life, places high financial costs on users who are charged for developing in-world content and for the traffic associated with accessing the remotely located servers.
This proposal describes how through the development of an national virtual world grid based on open
source software deployed on KAREN, and activities to promote the development of an active user
community, NZ tertiary educators and researchers can be given an accelerated opportunity to play an
innovative role in Web3.D development and usage.
Project outline
The National Virtual World Grid (NVWG) project will operate NZ-based computer servers running the OpenSim software (an open-source clone of the core functionality of Second Life) in “grid mode”. This will encourage uptake of Web3.D technology across New Zealand by enabling organisations connected to the Kiwi Advanced Research and Education Network (KAREN) to obtain free and high speed access to virtual world “regions” hosted in our servers, or to interconnect their own “region servers” with those of other institutions in NZ.
By developing, managing, and operating this National Virtual World Grid, and Web-based community
support tools for users, there will be an opportunity for all institutions that are connected to
the KAREN network to:
1) undertake both experimental and routine use of virtual worlds in teaching and research;
2) develop engaging, interactive in-world content customised for New Zealand use; and
3) develop new context-specific plugins enabling interaction with external applications that are
connected to the real (non-virtual) world and external services.
Expected outcome
The project will:
* Promote the establishment, growth and maintenance of a community of NZ users of Web3.D technology for tertiary education and research
* Provide the environment for New Zealand to become an innovator in Web3.D technology at the
international level.
* Facilitate the tertiary education sector to produce graduates ready to exploit Web3.D technology for the economic benefit of New Zealand
Project partners
University of Otago (Department of Information Science): Project leadership and management; grid
development and management of central grid services and Web-based community support tools.
University of Canterbury: deployment and management of Canterbury grid node (SIM); exemplar VW learning environments for two learning application areas.
University of Auckland: deployment and management of Auckland grid node (SIM).
It’s great to see such advocacy coming from New Zealand universities. I’m more than happy to be corrected on this but I’m unaware of such a project underway in Australia. There’s an enormous amount of development going on in the Australian university sector but is there anything as potentially unifying as the New Zealand model?
Thanks to Mo Hax (via Mal Burns) for the heads-up.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Second Life on your iPhone
August 7, 2008
…well sort of. Dynamo teen developer Katharine Berry has created an iPhone (or iPod Touch) version of her AjaxLife application.
Using it is as simple as pointing your iPhone’s web browser to http://ajaxlife.net/?iphone. Once logged in you can send and receive IM’s as well as see which of your friends are in-world.
Amazing work from a solo operator.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Microsoft’s paws on OpenSim?
July 20, 2008
Am I the only one that experiences nausea at the thought of Microsoft integrating its technologies with the OpenSim virtual world platform?
To me, any technology that’s brand-specific is going to cause more problems than deliver solutions when the longer term view is taken for interoperability.
Popularity: 7% [?]
IBM and Linden Lab take the next big step for (virtual) mankind
July 8, 2008
As announced on the Linden Lab blog today, IBM and Linden Lab have successfully teleported avatars from the Second Life preview grid to an OpenSim virtual world.
Some video of the event below or read the FAQ for future plans:
It’s another noteworthy step toward the holy grail of virtual world interoperability. Linden Lab state they’ll have their own Open Grid beta this month. It’s all very cutting edge for most of us but an echo of a very interesting future in virtual worlds.
Popularity: 8% [?]
Interoperability landmark – first ‘cross-teleport’
June 8, 2008
I can’t explain it any better than Tateru Nino has on Massively.
Essentially, the first documented movement of avatars between two separate virtual worlds has occurred. It’s a stark reminder of the progress occurring and where virtual worlds are likely to be in coming years.
Popularity: 6% [?]
OpenSim discussion panel: podcast available
May 20, 2008
Zatzai Asturius from Second Convention held a discussion panel last week about the future of the Second Life grids (both the Linden Lab and OpenSim grids).
The panel consisted of Australian Adam Zaius and Teravus Ousley from the OpenSim project and it’s now available as a podcast.
Zatzai describes the podcast: “The discussion is about an hour long and it covers why there are problems with the grid today and what can be done, and what is being done to correct it. As well as what OpenSim is doing differently and what it is doing the same for compatibilities sake. The capabilties and mentality of the OpenSim design are also brought up and I think it gives a good glimpse into their development process.”
It’s a fairly technical discussion but if you’re interested in what’s under the grid, it’s an interesting listen.
Popularity: 7% [?]
