Video: Direct Collada Importation to Open Sim

Fortune Truong, a Masters student I have been supervising for a minor project last semester, has just completed a nice native Collada uploading module for Open Sim.  The interaction consists of laying out a primitive with the desired dimensions, and then clicking it to bring up the Google Sketchup 3D Warehouse window to select an object.  The Collada mesh is then injected into the database backend of Open Sim directly, without any intermediate file manipulation by the user.

Video of work can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3b4bizEkXc.

Nice work Fortune!

Ross

News: Unity Powered Web SL/OpenSim Viewer

Tipodean technologies has just released a web-based browser called Canvas, for OpenSim and Second Life.

Tipodean is run by an Australian, Chris Collins, ex Linden Labs.

November 29, 2010 - Tipodean Technologies is pleased to announce the preview launch of Canvas, a web-based viewer for both Second Life and Opensim. Licensed from IBM, Canvas is unique in that it is highly scalable and easily customizable. Built with Unity3D and open web technologies, the web development community will be able to create unique and branded immersive virtual world experiences without having to know/learn new or complex code. The viewer can run as a hosted solution for individual use or be deployed to be hosted by others. "Canvas gives you the ability to have a light weight web-based virtual world solution that can configured to whatever your needs may be. Combing Canvas with OpenSim allows for an out-of the-box scalable virtual world deployable in the web", said Chris Collins, CEO of Tipodean Technologies.

Tipodean will be distributing and supporting Canvas. It will be offered in two forms: on a per user basis and as a completely customized deployment. Distribution of Canvas will start the week of December 6th, 2010. For more information, please contact Tipodean at +1 (415) 669-4028 or canvas@tipodean.com.

Tipodean Technologies is a company focused on virtual world technology that is easily accessible to all.

Ross

Video: Collaborative 3D BPMN Modelling Two

New improved collaborative Open Simulator, 3D BPMN editor video, showing a new interface and collaboration capabilities via remote login of another avatar.

This video is being presented at AMCIS 2010 in Peru, along with our paper.

Ross

CFP: SIOP MUVE Conference 2011

REQUEST FOR PAPERS

The study of Multi‐User Virtual Environments (MUVEs), like Second Life and OpenSim, is a brand new area of investigation in industrial/organizational psychology. Researchers in I/O
Psych study the application of psychological principles to workers and worker behavior in a
wide variety of settings, from large multinational corporations, to small businesses, to the
military. MUVEs are being used in these settings for many reasons, including recruitment,
selection/interviewing, training and development, leadership studies, and many others.

We are currently seeking collaborators for a symposium submission on MUVEs to the 2011
conference of the Society for Industrial/Organizational Psychology [SIOP]. The SIOP conference
attracts approximately 4000 academics and practitioners from a variety of fields, most typically
including I/O psychology, human resources, organizational behavior, and management.
OBHRM professionals are also often in attendance. Together, this composition offers ample
opportunity to establish new partnerships, collaborations, and contracts with a wide variety of
organizations.

Symposia at the SIOP conference are one‐ to two‐hour presentations consisting of 3 to 7
individual theoretical or empirical presentations, followed by a discussant that gives
commentary on the papers presented. Individual presentation lengths vary, but are typically 20
to 30 minutes. For this symposium, we are targeting empirical submissions, but high quality
theory is also welcome. Case studies of MUVEs deployed in actual organizations (outside the
lab) would be of high value.

The 2011 SIOP Conference will be held in downtown Chicago, IL. Each paper submitted in a
symposium is abstract‐length, and the deadline for this submission is September 15, 2010.
If you are interested in being a part of this symposium, please contact Richard N. Landers
(rnlanders@odu.edu), Assistant Professor of I/O Psychology at Old Dominion University to
discuss it in further detail.

Relevant URLs:

General SIOP Conference Website: http://siop.org/conferences/default.aspx
R. N. Landers: http://rlanders.net | http://neoacademic.com
SIOP: http://siop.org

News: 3DI Develop Android Open Sim Viewer

News article here shows 3DI, a Japanese Software company making Open Sim builds and viewers, has developed an Open Sim viewer for the Google Android Nexus mobile phone.

This is excellent news for virtual worlds, due to the future possibility of having mobile devices like the iPad being used for such virtual world applications.

Ross

Paper: AMCIS 2010 Collaborative business process modeling using 3D virtual environments

I have just uploaded our new paper accepted for AMCIS 2010 to the QUT Eprints Site. This paper details a collaborative BPMN modeling environment that my Masters student Stephen West has built for Open Simulator and Second Life. The main outcome is the creation of a useful 3D space to collaborate around a process model. A video of the work is posted here.

Jan Recker will be presenting the paper at AMCIS 2010. This work is part of our ongoing projects in the area of collaborative process modelling. Contact me if you need a copy of the paper before AMCIS.

Well done Stephen.

Ross

Techtip: Digital Content for OpenSim Servers

One of the things about Second Life is its walled garden policy regarding digital content. In many ways this is understood; people do want to make a living from their creations, and allowing for exportation is basically an opening for piracy. But, it does leave the content challenged, such as myself, a little left out when we set up Open Simulator servers.

This situation is now being at least partially rectified at the following sites I received on an email list I subscribe to in Australia - source Twitter: http://twitter.com/jokay:

• Avatar Marketplace http://members.avatarmarketplace.com/
• Rexxed http://www.rexxed.com/ (mainly xml files for upload to opensim via meerkat, open for creators to sell their goods)
• My Opensim http://myopensim.com/ (mainly designed to serve content to the Myopengrid but does have some full perms stuff)
• ReactionGrid's Outpost http://outpost.reactiongrid.com/ (more highend tools that everyday shopping - but includes some great stuff)
• SLapt http://slapt.me/ (which is an independent shopping destination for SL primarily, but allows creators to specify their work as 'for opensim' as well as in SL
• Total Avatar Shop http://www.totalavatarshop.com/ which will deliver to ReactionGrid or Second Life.

Ross

Techtip: Avatar Creation with Your Image

Have finally got around to creating a recognisable avatar for myself in Open Simulator. The process is simple, just download a nice tool like AVMaker, which uses a simple webcam image to generate a texture that is mappable to your avatar's head. You should then carry out the following steps.

First step, is to take an appropriate passport style image with your webcam. See below.

Then use something like AVMaker to generate the texture image to be applied. See below.

The next step is to fire up the viewing client (in my case Hippo), login to the grid you want to upload your appearance to, and then modify the appearance of your account avatar. To do this, right click on the avatar and select Appearance, and then select Skin. To make your face appear on the avatar, you must upload the face texture as a "Head Tattoo." See the image below.

Once you get out of the appearance menu, you should then have an avatar with, ahem, something like your appearance. See below.

I will now work on my hairstyle and clothes, as at the moment my avatar looks like a cross between Groucho and Harpo Marx.

Ross

Video: SSCRC Project Preliminary Video

This video shows an example of the latest version of our middleware linking the YAWL workflow engine to Open Simulator. We have created a simple example of an accident victim being brought into a Hospital to be processed.

The preliminary interface to the YAWL accident treatment workflow is shown as a worklist on the left of the image. The tasks are presented to the avatar via this interface, in a similar manner as done in web based workflow systems. Objects in the simulator are instrumented with a complex knowledge base, that enables the validation of actions within the world, to make sure that tasks are carried out correctly. This is particularly useful for process training.

NB: this movie is quite long in length - ~7 mins.

This project is supported by the Smart Services CRC. Publications will proceed from this preliminary work, and will be duly reported on in due course.

Ross

Techtip: Messages and Events in OpenSim

The colleagues I work with in the BPMVE group have been finding that the configuration OpenSim.ini file settings have solved a few problems with our in world scripting in Open Simulator. I thought it would be good to share these on the blog.

Firstly, we have found a few problems can occur with script events when a large number of objects are in the region. This is caused by too small an event queue, causing script events to disappear for no obvious reason. The line below is the default setup for OpenSim.

; Maximum number of (LSL) events that can be queued before new events are ignored.

EventExecutionMaxQueueSize=300

We find setting the value to something in the order of 10000 often solves script event problems.

Secondly, messages can only be sent over a certain distance in OpenSim. This is a problem when you want to create scripts that rez objects over a large area via messaging mechanisms. Frequently, the location to place the new objects is out of range of the default distances specified, so messages never get to the objects. Setting the following parameters in the .ini file to more sensible distances often fixes these problems as well.

; Distance in meters that whispers should travel. Default is 10m

whisper_distance = 10

; Distance in meters that ordinary chat should travel. Default is 30m

say_distance = 30

; Distance in meters that shouts should travel. Default is 100m

shout_distance = 100

Thanks to Rune Rasmussen and Nathan Steenstra for these tips.

Ross

Paper: APCCM 2010 Modelling in 3D Virtual Worlds

I have uploaded to QUT eprints the paper I presented at APCCM 2010 this week - Conceptual Modelling in 3D Virtual Worlds for Process Communication.

In this paper, I go into a little more detail about the 3D BPMN Editor I am developing in Open Simulator. I also discuss how to annotate a Virtual World with a Business Process Model (BPMN) in order to provide a place for a business analyst and a domain expert to combine their information to develop the conceptual process model for the business.

One comment from the audience was quite profound. In my approach, the Business Analyst brings the conceptual process model, and the domain expert brings the model of reality - buildings, layout and other artifacts representing the business. Together, these can be used to validate the correctness of the presented process model. Indeed this is done every time a consultant talks to a domain specialist and builds a model. However, when using the virtual world as a modelling space, the domain specialist provides (virtually) tangible information about the Enterprise.

Ross

TechTip: CutyCapt for Rendering Web Pages in OpenSim

Our projects are about visualising the operation of Information Systems within a 3D virtual model of a business. Part of this is integrating workflow systems, like YAWL, into the virtual environment.

YAWL runs using web services to render its custom workflow forms, which means if we wish to display the data perspective in-world, then we need a webpage rendering tool, to be able to generate a texture to be placed on a prim.

One currently used method is to use a web service like pici.picidae.net to render the page, and then retrieve it for placing on a primitive. Unfortunately, this is prohibitively slow. Erik Poppe, our research assistant, has come across a command line web rendering tool called CutyCapt. A related Internet Explorer version is available as well.

It uses webkit to render the pages, and looks like being a useful solution for efficiently making web page snapshots available on OpenSim primitives for our purposes - ie. PC Terminals in world with web apps. shown on the screen.

Ross