Within the past decade, virtual worlds have emerged as a prominent factor in technological culture. Virtual economies like *Everquest* have grown to rival gross domestic products of small nations (1), Chinese “gold farming” (the practice of harvesting treasure in online roleplaying games using cheap labor and reselling to the West) is big business, and record numbers of users are participating ...

3D Virtual Worlds (3D-VWs) provide a richer way of interaction via the Internet than is currently possible. 3D-VWs are computer generated environments, in which a user is represented by an avatar. An avatar allows the user to inhabit and interact with the 3D-VW and the other users. 3D-VWs are used in research, industry, training and entertainment and promises to enrich our interaction and under...

Iryna Kozlova, Carleton University Dmitri Priven, Algonquin College Although language learning in 3D Virtual Worlds (VWs) has become a focus of recent research, little is known about the knowledge and skills teachers need to acquire to provide effective task-based instruction in 3D VWs and the type of teacher training that best prepares instructors for such an endeavor. This study employs a sit...

This paper presents a strategy for automatically mapping information onto visual parameters in the field of three-dimensional (3D) information visualization. The work presented here is done in the context of researching how 3D information visualization may help when trying to visualize large volumes of dynamic data. The application field within which this work has been conducted is using 3D inf...

In recent years there has been significant growth in the use of 3D virtual worlds for e-learning and distance education. These immersive environments offer the ability to create complex, highly interactive simulations using in-world modelling and scripting tools. Virtual learning environments support teaching and learning in an educational context, offering the functionality to manage the prese...

Virtual worlds can be used to create immersive 3D teleconferencing and collaboration spaces. One challenge to the scalability of virtual collaboration is the unpredictable behavior of virtual world client viewers. This paper describes the result of a performance study of server optimizations in OpenSimulator, a multi-platform, 3D virtual world server. We explore the effect of server-side optimi...

Virtual Worlds are a popular medium for communication and collaboration in 3D and they are being utilized as shared information spaces in various application areas, such as education, culture and entertainment. Being presented as 3D visualization spaces they adopt a spatial model of navigation, in which information artifacts have a certain position in space and users can access them through the...

Online virtual worlds such as Second Life provide a rich medium for unstructured human interaction in a shared simulated 3D environment. However, many human interactions take place in a structured social context where participants are subject to expectations governing their behaviour, and current virtual worlds do not provide any support for this type of interaction. There is therefore an oppor...

This paper provides a brief overview of an implicit training method used for teaching autonomous agents to represent humans in 3D Virtual Worlds without any explicit training efforts being required.

This paper provides a brief overview of an implicit training method used for teaching autonomous agents to represent humans in 3D Virtual Worlds without any explicit training efforts being required.