GIT-GVU-96-03

A Network Communication Protocol for Distributed Virtual Environment Systems

G. Drew Kessler
Larry F. Hodges

Virtual environment (VE) applications involve many different tasks, including interfacing with input and output devices, providing responsive user interaction, and simulating a dynamic environment. The variety and number of tasks lends the application to a distributed computing system, where different tasks are performed by different computing resources. A critical issue that arises from such a design is how information is communicated between tasks. In particular, for virtual environments, how information is communicated promptly is the critical issue. In this work, we describe a pattern of communication common between VE tasks which is not addressed by other communication protocols, namely the communication of state information that continuously changes. We describe a new protocol based on an updatable queue abstraction which allows obsolete state information to be discarded, and compare a prototype implementation of that abstraction with a standard communication protocol.

Distributed virtual environments, network protocol, communication

PDF

Postscript