IntelligentBox for Web-Based VR Applications (WebIBVR) and Its Collaborative Virtual Environments

Abstract

This paper treats an interactive 3D graphics software development system called IntelligentBox and its extended version for Web-based VR applications called WebIBVR. WebIBVR consists of two main components, a client side part and a server side part. The server side part is almost the same as the original IntelligentBox. Its difference from the original IntelligentBox is functionality of off-screen rendering of 3D scenes and communication with a client side part. The client side part is a JavaScript program runs on a Web-browser and displays the images of 3D scenes sent from the server side. The client side part provides several functionalities for VR applications, i.e., stereo view support and multi-angle view support for a Head Mounted Display (HMD) of a VR goggle with a smartphone. Multiple HMDs can share the same view image of a 3D scene generated by server side IntelligentBox. However, the server side IntelligentBox cannot generate multiple different view images of a 3D scene correspond to the orientation of each of multiple HMDs because it needs much time and the interactivity becomes worse. To overcome this, in this paper the authors proposes the use of multiple server side IntelligentBoxes to generate multiple different view images of a common 3D scene at once by communicating with each other using RoomBox, one of the special purpose components of original IntelligentBox used for building collaborative virtual environments. This paper also explains the performance improvement of image transmission from a server side to a client side.