04-05-2011, 03:24 PM
Abstract
The World Wide Web, which has started as a documentrepository, is rapidly transforming to a full fledged virtualenvironment that facilitates services, interaction, and com-munication. Under this light, the Semantic Web and Web2.0 movements can be seen as intermediate steps of a natu-ral evolution towards a new paradigm, the 3D Internet. Weprovide an overview of the concept 3D Internet and discusswhy it is a goal worth pursuing, what it does entail, andhow one can realize it. Our goal in this paper is to discussa research agenda and raise interest in networking, security,distributed computing, and machine learning communities.We explore first the motivation for the 3D Internet and thepossibilities it brings. Subsequently, we investigate the spe-cific system level and research challenges that need to beaddressed in order to make the 3D Internet a reality.
1 Introduction
The Internet is evolving to become the de-facto cyberspaceor virtual environment facilitating communication,business, and entertainment on a global scale. On the otherhand, metaverses or virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL)or World of Warcraft (WoW) are much younger when comparedto other Web technologies. Today, the success andmomentum of virtual worlds are undeniable. The marketfor MMOGs is estimated to be worth more than one billionUS dollars and such metaverses are fast becoming ”significantplatforms” in the converged media world according tosome analysts. Virtual worlds are increasingly seen as morethan game and interpreted within a business context ratherthan entertainment. The view that metaverses will play asignificant role in the future is shared by many researchersand professionals in the field. Among them are the participantsof the metaverse roadmap (MVR) who aim to exploremultiple pathways to the 3D enhanced web [2], the CroquetConsortium [1], as well as the VRML and X3D communities.We envision a 3D Internet which will be to 2D graphicaluser interface (GUI) and Web of today what 2D GUIand World Wide Web (WWW) were to command line interface(CLI) and gopher two decades ago. While the conceptseems incremental in the sense that it merely adds 3Dgraphics to the current Web, it is in fact revolutionary forit provides a complete virtual environment that facilitatesservices, interaction, and communication. From this perspective,the 3D Internet can be seen as the evolutionaryend point of ongoing efforts such as Web 2.0 and SemanticWeb.Our objective in this paper is to define the 3D Internetconcept and discuss why it is a goal worth pursuing, what itdoes entail, and how one can realize it. Along with its enormouspotential the 3D Internet also opens many researchchallenges in order to become a reality. Metaverses haverecently caught the attention of gaming, advertisement, 3Ddesign, and performing arts communities among others.However, it is difficult to claim that the same level of interesthas been raised in the areas of networking, machinelearning, and distributed computing. Without overcomingthese engineering challenges and making a business caseto stakeholders the 3D Internet is destined to be an academicexercise and remain in the realm of science fiction; afate experienced by many initially promising concepts suchas artificial intelligence or virtual reality. We discuss inthe next section why stakeholders such as communicationand computing companies, research institutions, and onlinebusinesses should be interested and participate in the 3D Internet.In Section 3, we present an example architecture as astarting point for the 3D Internet. Section 4 summarizes theengineering challenges and explores research directions invarious fields. The paper concludes with remarks in Section
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The World Wide Web, which has started as a documentrepository, is rapidly transforming to a full fledged virtualenvironment that facilitates services, interaction, and com-munication. Under this light, the Semantic Web and Web2.0 movements can be seen as intermediate steps of a natu-ral evolution towards a new paradigm, the 3D Internet. Weprovide an overview of the concept 3D Internet and discusswhy it is a goal worth pursuing, what it does entail, andhow one can realize it. Our goal in this paper is to discussa research agenda and raise interest in networking, security,distributed computing, and machine learning communities.We explore first the motivation for the 3D Internet and thepossibilities it brings. Subsequently, we investigate the spe-cific system level and research challenges that need to beaddressed in order to make the 3D Internet a reality.
1 Introduction
The Internet is evolving to become the de-facto cyberspaceor virtual environment facilitating communication,business, and entertainment on a global scale. On the otherhand, metaverses or virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL)or World of Warcraft (WoW) are much younger when comparedto other Web technologies. Today, the success andmomentum of virtual worlds are undeniable. The marketfor MMOGs is estimated to be worth more than one billionUS dollars and such metaverses are fast becoming ”significantplatforms” in the converged media world according tosome analysts. Virtual worlds are increasingly seen as morethan game and interpreted within a business context ratherthan entertainment. The view that metaverses will play asignificant role in the future is shared by many researchersand professionals in the field. Among them are the participantsof the metaverse roadmap (MVR) who aim to exploremultiple pathways to the 3D enhanced web [2], the CroquetConsortium [1], as well as the VRML and X3D communities.We envision a 3D Internet which will be to 2D graphicaluser interface (GUI) and Web of today what 2D GUIand World Wide Web (WWW) were to command line interface(CLI) and gopher two decades ago. While the conceptseems incremental in the sense that it merely adds 3Dgraphics to the current Web, it is in fact revolutionary forit provides a complete virtual environment that facilitatesservices, interaction, and communication. From this perspective,the 3D Internet can be seen as the evolutionaryend point of ongoing efforts such as Web 2.0 and SemanticWeb.Our objective in this paper is to define the 3D Internetconcept and discuss why it is a goal worth pursuing, what itdoes entail, and how one can realize it. Along with its enormouspotential the 3D Internet also opens many researchchallenges in order to become a reality. Metaverses haverecently caught the attention of gaming, advertisement, 3Ddesign, and performing arts communities among others.However, it is difficult to claim that the same level of interesthas been raised in the areas of networking, machinelearning, and distributed computing. Without overcomingthese engineering challenges and making a business caseto stakeholders the 3D Internet is destined to be an academicexercise and remain in the realm of science fiction; afate experienced by many initially promising concepts suchas artificial intelligence or virtual reality. We discuss inthe next section why stakeholders such as communicationand computing companies, research institutions, and onlinebusinesses should be interested and participate in the 3D Internet.In Section 3, we present an example architecture as astarting point for the 3D Internet. Section 4 summarizes theengineering challenges and explores research directions invarious fields. The paper concludes with remarks in Section
Download full report
http://www.kotsovinosresearch/papers/Alp...ternet.pdf