Dimensional Virtual Worlds Research Articles

Analysis of Cybersecurity Threats and Vulnerabilities in Metaverse Environment

Metaverse is a compound word of the English words 'meta', meaning 'virtual' and 'transcendence', and 'universe' mea ning the universe. dimensional virtual world. Metaverse is a concept that has evolved one step further than virtual reality (VR, a cutting-edge technology that enables people to experience life-like experiences in a virtual world created by a com puter). It has the characteristic of being able to engage in social and cultural activities similar to reality. However, there a re many security issues related to this, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities may occur. This paper analyzes cybersecurity thre ats that may occur in the metaverse environment and checks vulnerabilities.

Envisioning innovative technology of three dimensional virtual worlds (3D VWs) for continuing professional development (CPD) programs

Envisioning innovative technology of three dimensional virtual worlds (3D VWs) for continuing professional development (CPD) programs

User support for managed immersive education : an evaluation of in-world training for OpenSim

Supporting users for a competent interaction with 3 dimensional virtual worlds can increase their user experience within the immersive education environment. User manuals and other guide documents are popular supporting instruments for training new users of a software system. Quite often these documents have many screenshots of the application user interface which are used to steer a new user through sequential orders of actions. However, for complex scenarios of user interactions, such as those found in virtual worlds, these types of documents can become unhelpfully lengthy and unintuitive. The first part of this research was a comparative analysis of traditional document-based user support with an in-world approach; a prototype training island was developed in OpenSim and evaluated for its training support against the OpenSim user guide documents. The results suggested in-world training can be a better option of training for OpenSim than training documents. Second part of this research was to evaluate a completed training environment, which consist of two OpenSim islands, one for basic user training and one for training advanced OpenSim management. The results suggested that training for advanced OpenSim management, which is not covered in user guide documents, make users competent for managing their immersive environment. The final part of the research, a case study, examined the effective use of this complete training environment for module teaching and learner support. The results suggest that for learning the skills essential for productive use of OpenSim-based educational environments, an in-world approach covering advanced management functions of OpenSim is likely to be a better option than traditional user manuals for the future needs for immersive education as a mainstream practice.

A Mirror without a Tain: Personae, Avatars, and Selves in a Multi-User Virtual Environment

A Mirror without a Tain: Personae, Avatars, and Selves in a Multi-User Virtual Environment

The Use of Virtual Worlds in Management Education: An Investigation of Current Practices in Second Life

Frequently, research on management education does not take into account the role of Information Technology as a key resource to support teaching and learning processes. In this article, the authors explore the current applications of Three Dimensional Virtual Worlds (3DVW) for Management education. The authors researched the educational institutions subscribed to Second Life (SL) (http://secondlife.com/), as it is one of the most popular open 3DVW available worldwide. The results reveal that only 31% of the institutions that answered the authors’ questionnaire actually use SL in Management education. Regarding the acceptance of SL in Management education, one third of the 15 institutions using it claim that it has been well received and accepted both by students and lecturers/professors. These results lead to several questions for further research and development of practices concerning the use of 3DVW for Management education.

Can Presence Improve Collaboration in 3D Virtual Worlds?

Three dimensional (3D) virtual worlds are regarded as possessing strong capabilities to support collaboration between people. The physical characteristics of the virtual environment are pointed out as responsible for that capability because they create immersive environments that we are familiar with, and are able to involve users in such a way that the feeling of being in the world is frequently reported. Presence, the perception of the virtual as if it were real, may be helpful in realizing how an easier to understand environment can improve collaboration. In this paper, based on a literature review, we look into the relationship between presence and collaboration, and the importance of presence to the understanding of collaboration in 3D virtual worlds.

Space, Text and Hoopla

This text attempts to delve into the creation of textual content as well as its visualization through typographic design mechanisms inside three dimensional virtual worlds known as the metaverse, with a particular focus upon the way in which such virtually three dimensional environments may place the usage of text within a context that stands in contradiction to its traditional one by creating an unexpected novel purpose: This takes a marked departure from the intrinsic attribute with which text has inherently been associated – namely the attribute of legibility. In such environments readability can be displaced through the usage of text and typography as playful devices that may manifest as visual structures the contents of which are meant to be understood through means other than reading – as it is understood in the traditional sense of the word. Instead, such spaces are aimed to bring about about states of heightened engagement, wonder and ‘play’ through their manipulation or indeed simply by being immersed within the typographic conglomeration that constitutes their essences. This subject will be explored through the discussion of three such typographic playgrounds that the author has created in the metaverse; as well as through their visual documentation undertaken through numerous images/screenshots that are placed throughout this text.

The Use of Virtual Worlds in Management Education: A Research of Current Practices in Second Life

Virtual worlds offer several possibilities for education, since they allow access to information, communication and ‘sense of presence´ regardless the physical location of users. Three dimensional Virtual Worlds (3DVW) can constitute a space for action and simulation of real life business situations. In this article, we explore the current applications of 3DVW for management education. We have researched the educational institutions subscribed on Second Life (SL) (http://secondlife.com/), since it is one of the most popular open 3DVW available worldwide. Our research results reveal that only 31% of the institutions that answered our research (48 in total) actually use SL in management education, most of them in undergraduate courses, followed by seminars, with around 29 students in average using SL. The pedagogical tools that are used the most are text chats and voice chats, followed by presentation whiteboards or slide presentations and the pedagogical activities used are basically lectures, conferences,...

Towards a Research Agenda for the Use of Three- Dimensional Virtual Worlds in Language Learning

This article investigates research on the use of network-based three-dimensional virtual worlds in computer-assisted language learning (CALL). The significant features of the major types of virtual world currently utilized are examined, as are the hypothesized advantages and issues associated with their use. This is followed by a critical review of the literature which reveals that contemporary research remains largely exploratory in nature and is subject to significant limitations. The literature review also identifies encouraging preliminary findings. These suggest that Active Worlds and Second Life present viable arenas for learner-based CALL projects. Positive findings identified in studies include evidence for beneficial forms of collaborative target language interaction, enhanced engagement, motivation, presence, and participation. The analysis draws attention to the need for learner training and consideration of educator roles. Further significant issues include the influence of task, technical affordances, and sociocultural factors on learner behavior. The article concludes by identifying areas of potential interest in future research.

3D Virtual Worlds

Teams meet in 3D virtual worlds more frequently than ever before, yet the tools for evaluating 3D collaboration environments are underdeveloped. To close the 3D collaboration tool evaluation gap, the authors integrate lessons from the gaming industry and distributed work research. They develop two complementary approaches. First, the individual user’s perspective using eye-tracking (ET) is addressed, and second, the collaborative experience of the group using a technique called All-Views-Qualitative-Analysis (AVQA) is evaluated. The latter integrates the points-of-view of all subjects in a small group collaborating on a creative work task in a 3 dimensional virtual world. The authors show how these techniques enable evaluation of 3D environment design from the perspective of human computer interaction theory and theories related to distributed work. The paper discusses why designers should seek ways to leverage the advantages of 3D collaboration technologies and avoid recreating mirrors of physical space in these environments.

Learner interaction management in an avatar and chat-based virtual world

In this paper, I report on the findings of a study that investigated non-native speaker interaction in a three dimensional (3D) virtual world that incorporates avatars and text chat known as Active Worlds. Analysis of the chat transcripts indicated that the 24 intermediate level EFL participants were able to undertake a variety of tasks through target language interaction. Moreover, I found evidence in the corpus that over 3 chat sessions the subjects employed transactional communication strategies (424) and also interactional strategies (382). Further analysis revealed that instances of negotiation of meaning focusing on lexis occurred. However, negotiation was infrequent across the 3 task types administered. Task type appeared to influence the quantity of negotiation, with more negotiation occurring in the decision-making task than in the jigsaw and opinion-exchange tasks. In addition, post-study questionnaires indicated that the avatars enhanced the subjects' sense of telepresence and that the learners made use of their communicative features during the interaction. The analysis further suggested that the use of avatars facilitated learner interaction management during real time CMC. In this research, I attempted to account for the use of the above strategies and found that the learner interaction was influenced by the complex interaction of a number of variables including task type, sociolinguistic factors, context of use and the mix of technical affordances provided by Active Worlds. This paper concludes by identifying areas of potential for future research in the use of avatar-based virtual worlds in computer assisted language learning (CALL).

Social Diffusion Patterns in Three-Dimensional Virtual Worlds

This paper presents a visualization tool set that can be used to visualize the evolution of three-dimensional (3D) virtual environments, the distribution of their virtual inhabitants over time and space, the formation and diffusion of groups, the influence of group leaders, and the environmental and social influences on chat and diffusion patterns for small (1 – 100 participants) but also rather large user groups (more than 100 participants). The techniques are applied to analyze and visualize data recorded during events in virtual worlds, as well as simulated data, but are also applicable to real-world data. Resulting visualizations can and have been used to ease social navigation in 3D virtual worlds, help evaluate and optimize the design of virtual worlds, and provide a means to study the communities evolving in virtual worlds. The visualizations are particularly valuable for analyzing events that are spread out in time and/or space or events that involve a very large number of participants. The paper reviews and builds upon research in information visualization, scientific visualization, geography, architecture, and social science. It discusses intended user groups and their tasks and how the proposed techniques support those tasks. Three dimensional virtual world technologies are briefly described before the visualization tool set is explained in detail together with sample applications. The paper concludes with a discussion of results and an outlook for future work.

Touching the future: applications of virtual reality technology to mental health concerns

Virtual Reality (VR) systems are a computer interface that allows for the user to interact with and be immersed in a computer-generated environment. Virtual Environments (VEs) offer a human-computer interaction paradigm that allows users to be active participants within a computer-generated three dimensional virtual world. Many VR applications have emerged in the areas of education, military training, physical rehabilitation, and medicine. VR can add, delete, or emphasise details to better help clinicians perform basic functions and can provide the patient with specialised safer treatment techniques for problems that previously were expensive or impossible to treat in traditional training and therapy. For these reasons VEs have attracted much attention in clinical psychology and mental health applications. This paper reviews the history of VR systems development, their application to psychotherapy, assessment, rehabilitation and performance/learning and future trends.

NPSNET: Real‐time collision detection and response

AbstractThe Graphics and Video Laboratory of the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is in the process of constructing a three dimensional (3D) virtual world called NPSNET.1 NPSNET is a low‐cost, commercial workstation‐based 3D visual simulator that uses SIMNET terrain databases and networking.2 NPSNET is programmed using off‐the‐shelf SGI IRIS graphics workstations, rather than the platform‐specific nodes of SIMNET. Part of the work in constructing the NPSNET world is detecting and resolving collisions in real‐time. Such collision detection and resolution has been accomplished and integrated into the latest version of NPSNET, NPSNET‐2. The detection of vehicle‐weapon, vehicle‐vehicle and vehicle‐stationary non‐vehicle collisions is performed throughout the virtual world.