Using a Position History-Based Protocol for Distributed Object Visualization

Users of distributed virtual reality applications interact with users located across the network. Similarly, distributed object visualization systems store dynamic data at one host and render it in real-time at other hosts. Because data in both systems is animated and exhibits unpredictable behavior, providing up-to-date information about remote objects is expensive. Remote hosts must instead apply extrapolation between successive update packets to render the object's true animated behavior. This paper describes and analyzes a \position history-based" protocol in which hosts apply several recent position updates to track the position of remote objects. The history-based approach o ers smooth, accurate visualizations of remote objects while providing a scalable solution.