Workshop Seven Virtual Worlds: Design and Research Directions

The ActiveWorld toolkit is an open source toolkit developed at Indiana University. It allows researchers to explore social diffusion patterns in three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds, specifically those built using ActiveWorlds technology. Written in pure Java, the toolkit provides the ability to not only visualize the structure of virtual worlds (spatial position of 3D objects, their size and orientation, age of objects in the world) on a true-to-scale map but also the activity of users’ avatars inside the virtual worlds such as their idle positions, movement trails, actions performed (such as clicking or teleporting) or chatting behavior.