Online three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds are emerging technologies that offer unique learning opportunities for traditional and distributed education. One of the more popular 3D virtual worlds, Active Worlds, is currently being used as a medium for synchronous and asynchronous distance learning. This investigation presents two exploratory case studies of different, but exemplary educational...

Evolving online virtual worlds are intensely being utilised as 3D Virtual Learning Environments (3D VLEs) by hundreds of universities worldwide. However, there is inadequate academic research depicting satisfaction of users from the environmental design factors of 3D virtual buildings used within these virtual worlds. Specifically, there is no research evidence representing satisfaction of educ...

Virtual worlds are three-dimensional (3D) persistent multi-user online environments where users interact through avatars. The affordances of virtual worlds can be useful for business-to-consumer e-commerce. Moreover, affordances of virtual worlds can complement affordances of websites to provide consumers with an enhanced e-commerce experience. We investigated which affordances of virtual world...

More and more researchers in a variety of fields are turning to virtual worlds for 3D simulations and scientific modeling. The use of virtual worlds in this manner offers many benefits. However, the critical task of creating 3D objects for a simulation model is still a manual process, which can be time consuming. Our research concentrates on creating a process that allows for the automatic popu...

The majority of existing virtual heritage applications are focused on detailed 3D reconstruction of historically significant sites and ancient artifacts. Recreating the way of life of ancient people is only considered by some researchers, who employ crowd simulation for this task. Existing crowd simulation algorithms are not suitable for modeling complex individual behaviors and role dependent ...

One of the most successful and useful implementations of 3D virtual worlds is in the area of education and training. This paper discusses the use of virtual worlds in education and describes an innovative 3D visualization design project using one of the most popular virtual worlds, Second Life. This ongoing project is a partnership between IBM and three universities in the United States: the Un...

Virtual Institutions (VIs) have proven to be adequate to engineer applications where participants can be humans and software agents. VIs combine Electronic Institutions (EIs) and 3D Virtual Worlds (VW). In this context, Electronic Institutions are used to establish the regulations that structure interactions and support software agent participation while Virtual Worlds facilitate human particip...

Three-dimensional virtual worlds are an emerging medium currently being used as both an extension of traditional classroom environments and as a medium for distance learning. Threedimensional (3D) virtual worlds are a combination of desk-top virtual reality within a chat environment. This review provides an overview of the following 3D virtual world applications: Active Worlds Educational Unive...

Design agents are rational agents that monitor and modify elements of a designed environment. Special characteristics of design agents include the ability to reason about patterns and concepts, and the ability to act autonomously in modifying or changing the design to achieve their own goals. 3D Virtual Worlds are multi-user distributed systems that provide a designed environment and a closed w...

It has been shown that collaborative learning can be fostered by computer support, especially in distance learning situations, where students meet online with their peers to work collaboratively on exercises or projects and discuss in groups. We share the spreading belief that particularly virtual worlds (3D Collaborative Virtual Environments) are suitable for collaborative learning, and presen...