Virtual worlds are three-dimensional (3D) online persistent multi-user environments where users interact through avatars. The literature suggests that virtual worlds can facilitate real world business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce. However, few real world businesses have adopted virtual worlds for B2C e-commerce. In this paper, we present results from interviews with consumers in a virtual world...

Three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds have been used for more than a decade in higher education for teaching and learning. Since the 1980s, academics began using virtual worlds as an exciting and innovative new technology to provide their students with new learning experiences that were difficult to provide any other way. But since that time, virtual worlds have failed to maintain their popular...

3D Virtual worlds facilitate a level of communication and collaboration not readily available in conventional CAD systems. The integration of virtual worlds and CAD systems using a common data model can make a significant impact on synchronous collaboration and real time multi-user multi-disciplinary modification of building data. By using agents, the integration of 3D virtual worlds and CAD sy...

This paper presents an analysis and discussion of visual information representations in multi-user avatar-based 3D virtual worlds. We discuss benefits and issues of such environments for displaying scientific and information visualizations. In comparison to traditional two-dimensional representation forms, virtual worlds can be used to display more dimensions of information and illustrate data ...

Nowadays, governments are increasingly taking advantage of Information and Communication Technologies to provide services over the internet (the so-called e-Government applications) to citizens, businesses, employees, and agencies. We argue that e-government services will benefit from being distributed and intelligent, and thus, that they can be modelled as Multi-Agent Systems (MAS). The field ...

This paper presents novel methods to handle potential occlusion problems and to render realistically the lighting of embedded virtual 3D objects in photo-based 3D worlds. These 3D worlds are called 3D Photo Collections. The first focus of this work handles potential occlusion problems between image parts of photos and the embedded virtual objects by dividing photos into 3D segments, which we ca...

Current research shows that three-dimensional (3D) virtual worlds can be effectively used in distance learning. Their immersive environment as well as the extensive repertoire of communication and collaboration means such as voice over IP, 3D representations, and instant text messaging are central characteristics of virtual worlds. These features, characteristics, and their playful character ma...

along with the advent of recent communicative technologies, new cyber social networks have been emerged as the most influential line of interaction. this is a new world free from many of constraints and limitations of the physical world. it lacks weather, gravity, and geographical features; therefore it does not require addressing many of structures and necessities of the real world. in the vir...

Computer graphics can not only generate synthetic images and ground truth but it also offers the possibility of constructing virtual worlds in which: (i) an agent can perceive, navigate, and take actions guided by AI algorithms, (ii) properties of the worlds can be modified (e.g., material and reflectance), (iii) physical simulations can be performed, and (iv) algorithms can be learnt and evalu...