VR-MOG: A Toolkit For Building Shared Virtual Worlds

The paper presents a user interface toolkit to support the rapid construction of cooperative virtual environments. The toolkit is based on extending a 2D model of interaction to 3D virtual environments. The toolkit populates a virtual world with shared 3D interface objects which allow deeper semantic interaction with the virtual world. A principal focus of the toolkit is on the provision of accessible facilities to manage interface configuration and tailoring. Most existing facilities to manage cooperative environments tend to be language centred and provide only limited tailorability for users and developers. In addition, the current generation of virtual environments focus on the direct manipulation of virtual worlds. The model of interaction supported tends not to consider deeper application semantics and limited facilities are provided for developing richer applications. In this paper we present a multi-user interface toolkit that provides management facilities in a manner that allow the access to deeper application semantics. This is achieved by building upon existing 2D models of interaction and allowing virtual environments to be constructed from shared virtual interface objects. The toolkit has been used to rapidly construct a number of semantically rich cooperative virtual environments. We would also suggest that the migration of our user interface model offers the possibility of moving exiting 2D applications to virtual environments.