Is There Life in Virtual Worlds?

The Collaborative Virtual Design Studio (CVDS) opens its doors

Three dimensions and the Internet do not really mix, yet. As technology advances the urge and desire of designers and companies to create a more realistic 3D world on the Net cannot be avoided, whether out of pure curiosity, pure aesthetics or out of pure financial gain.

At the moment we may only associate the virtual reality 3D experience with fairground rides, total immersion rides powered by hydraulics, and arcade games whether on your console or in the High Street. The big spectacle and the big thrill, which is often more of a group experience, against a more intimate one, such as the Internet.

Essentially the push for computer and console games and the billion dollar industry that is the computer game market place, the speed that microprocessors have grown in capacity, is the reason we are now starting to see the three dimensional world transfer across onto the Internet.

In 26 years the number of transistors on a chip has increased more than 3,200 times, from 2,300 on the 4004 in 1971 to 7.5 million on the Pentium(r) II processor. Moore's Law (Gordon Moore, founder of processor giant Intel - did he also think of those funny costumes?) has told us that processors will increase exponentially, so that within the next two years there will be a chip capable of twice the speed of its predecessor - and so the wheel keeps turning.

But are we being dazzled, tempted along by the people that make the hardware to buy ever more powerful chips so we think the Net is getting slicker and more impressive, when really information is being passed over, and the speed of the Net slowed down, in favour of advertising and the endless search for revenue from users?

3D for urban development

There are people out there, however, who believe virtual worlds have the potential to dramatically change our lives, and that the Internet is the best place for it to happen. One such experiment, based at University College London's Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), is about to open its doors. In a 30-day trial starting on Tuesday November 30, a virtual environment will be open for anyone to build anything they wish, creating a strange new cyber world. Researcher Andy Smith will be watching and taking notes.

As part of the Online Planning team at the University, Andy has been studying the potential for virtual reality systems on the Web for his PhD in Internet Based Communications, looking at the potential the Internet has to create virtual worlds that inform and assist the development of real towns and cities.

By using the online virtual web site Active Worlds, Andy has created an environment called the Collaborative Virtual Design Studio (CVDS) where he and some students can design and plan virtual worlds that are based more on reality than your normal architectural drawing or plan. Rather than glorified architectural space, CVDS allows for a practical response to the real world in a cyber home by using the same renderware that is used for such game classics as Doom.

The 3D stuff on the web is interesting - e.g. VRML seems to be on its way out as it never delivered what it promised. VRML is also bandwidth and processor hungry. The work we use in Active Worlds runs using renderware and it renders well on a low-end machine without a 3D graphics card.... This is why we use it.

Andy Smith

One of Andy's previous projects was a scenario where the user was in a wheelchair, which helped planners to see and understand how their designs would affect wheelchair-bound citizens. This may at first seem a strange concept for the Internet or a virtual world, as normally the placement of physical restrictions is not part of the plan. Gaming and virtual reality is the domain of freedom from such handicaps, but the project succeeded in bringing home the difficulties and considerations needed to improve the development of a real environment.

People are starting to take notice of the work done at CASA, realising the potential that 3D worlds on the World Wide Web have in terms of town planning and addressing public opinion. Just using any of the virtual worlds on the Active Worlds Web site is an eye opener for anyone who thought that virtual reality had gone away or had failed to impact on our lives.

All you need is a special free browser, which you can download from the site. The file is only 1.9 megabytes and downloads quite quickly.

"People will be free to build whatever they wish, with no restrictions", said Andy.

"I'm expecting a lot of really interesting architecture to develop, as well as peoples pictures from Web sites, Web cams etc. Also advertisements and links to other sites."

"And yes I do expect a lot of vandalism, as last week I opened the world up for the students and we had a high level of abuse and vandalism. A sad fact of virtual life, but interesting to study."

So, how will this affect the research done by CASA? "It's set up to explore 'Life in Virtual Worlds' (a chapter of Andy's PhD). All the conversations and building is logged," said Andy.

"A map will be drawn up each day showing expansion and illustrating how virtual worlds grow like real world cities, despite being unplanned."

People anywhere in the world can access the plans and ideas, and give architects, the councils and the public a greater understanding of how new environments will affect them. Whether the Net in general will ever be able to seriously accommodate a truly 3D world is a different matter. Whilst the potential is definitely there, the speed at which users expect things to happen means that it is a difficult future to imagine. AT the moment CVDS seems the only environment on Active Worlds that really makes full use of its potential, rather than simple being a chat room playground for an international group of youths.

So is this something that we need? Once again it is the battle between what is practical and useful against what is entertainment, whether machines are being made more powerful to satisfy a visual hungry audience or to practically enhance our real lives.

Visit the CASA web page to find out more about the CVDS trial, live from November 30, and how to build in Andy's world.