Wonderblog

It's always exciting to hear about people around the world using Wonderland, but I was particularly excited to learn about the Wonderland competition recently completed in Thailand. The image here is from a world created by one of the teams in the competition called "Blue Phoenix." 

In today's guest blog, I have the pleasure of  introducing Professor Putchong Uthayopas from the Department of Computer Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, at Kasetsart University, Thailand. Putchong is not only interested in using virtual worlds to help get students excited about Computer Science, but he also has a vision for how virtual worlds can be used to better engage distance education students in a range of subjects including Math and Physics. 

Aside from his interest in virtual worlds, Putchong's main research focus is on cluster, grid, and cloud computing. He received a national invention award from the National Research Council of Thailand for his cluster and HPC work in 2000.  And, like quite a few of you I'm sure, he is a big fan of sci-fi, especially Star Trek. 

In the following guest blog, Professor Putchong Uthayopas from Kasetsart University, Thailand describes the recently completed Wonderland Challenge 2009 competition.

Want your students to build their own virtual world? Your wish can now come true.

To stimulate the interest and imagination of young computer scientists in Thailand about 3D virtual worlds, we at Kasetsart University worked with Sun Microsystems to organize a competition called Wonderland Challenge 2009. We choose Project Wonderland because it allows anyone to easily learn how to build  a simple world and make it quickly come to life on-line. We have about 30 teams registered for the competition.  To help them, we held a 2-day workshop on how to build your own world in Wonderland.  It was a successful and fun workshop. Many teams were able to create their own working virtual world in only one night!

After a few weeks of development, 11 teams returned with imaginative and beautiful worlds. We really appreciate the time and effort they spent. The worlds they built ranged from a small zoo, to a virtual museum, to a train house, and a miniature world. The winning team, "Hyperion," actually created a 3-story space station for children to get a glimpse of life in space.

Without technology like Wonderland, it would have been very difficult to set up a competition like this one. We are looking forward to a new, more powerful version of Wonderland, especially the feature that allows us to link  many worlds together. I personally am very impressed. I never imagined that I could easily build a whole new world of my own imagining.  But yes, I can, and so can you.

See some of the worlds our students created in the Wonderland Challenge 2009 competition here:

I recently received an intriguing message from Kenneth Merriman, an MBA student at Webster University at the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo, California telling me about a capstone project report he was working on to complete his masters in IT Management. In the report, he uses Wonderland as an example of virtual world technology that is poised to solve a variety of communication and coordination problems faced by large enterprises.

Ken has a fascinating, eclectic background. Like many others interested in virtual worlds, Ken is an avid World of Warcraft player. He tells me he has reached the highest level (80) with one of his four toons. I'm not a gamer, but this sounded impressive! Ken started his career at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories working on spacecraft atomic generators. From there, he moved on to the motion picture industry where he directed a documentary on the 1976 Mars landing entitled “Mars Minus Myth (revised)” that won the Bronze Hugo Award at the 1977 Chicago Film Festival. After that, he did a stint working for the Department of Defense missile systems division as a production planner/analyst on the prototype navigational system for the stealth fighter. In the 1990s, Ken changed careers and became a graphic artist, studying Alias 3D design and animation at the Art Center, College of Design in Pasadena. This landed him a job at Mattel in the IT Infrastructure department supporting the teams of artists and designers developing toy products. Now, after completing his MBA, Ken is working on a proposal for a new business related to on-line games and virtual worlds.

In the guest blog that follows, Ken Merriman describes his capstone project.

Capstone Project

Nicole Yankelovich was very kind to invite me to contribute a blog to this Web site in order to share some of my findings on the final capstone project that I wrote for my MA‑IT Management degree at Webster University entitled 3D Virtual Workspace for Business Communication and Collaboration. The goal of the final capstone project was to determine a need that exists in a global organization with 250,000 employees and present an analysis of a business solution that would be beneficial to an organization of this scale. In my report, I used Project Wonderland an example to illustrate what I consider the next evolutionary development in corporate communication and collaboration tools: 3D virtual workspaces. I found Wonderland to be innovatively designed to bring distant people together in such a manner as to promote team involvement and personal bonding. As a former employee of Mattel, Inc., in El Segundo, California, I have experience with teams that are separated by large distances. I worked for 11 years in Mattel’s IT Infrastructure department, during which time I was involved in several global projects that required coordination of distributed IT support personnel. These collaborative efforts were successfully accomplished using a combination of voice communications, video communications, Net Meetings, e-mail, text messaging, and remote computer sharing/control. We were impressed with the benefits that these Internet tools offered. At one point, I was controlling computers in Germany and Hong Kong while still at my desk in Los Angeles.

Problems and Solutions

There were problems, however, with effectively orchestrating all these technologies. The logistics of tracking and storing data were difficult, due in part to the lack of centralization as well as the absence of consistent standards across locations. Planned meetings required advanced arrangements to assure team participation. It was not a simple task to make this happen. In addition, I noticed that there was a consistent disconnect between the team members. This appeared to be due to inadequate bonding during the team formation phase, which I attributed to team members' limited exposure to one another. We did our best to compensate for the lack of face-to-face meetings, but these electronic meetings did not compare with the level of information exchange or personal bonding associated with in-person meetings. This led me to think that there might be a better solution.

In my research, I came across Project Wonderland being developed at Sun Microsystems. This matched perfectly with the situation and provided a possible solution that I felt would address these problems. The architecture of Wonderland appears to address the ability to rapidly connect people while also supporting casual meetings and impromptu discussions. The ability for the mind to momentarily suspend disbelief while immersed in a 3D virtual workspace can give the user a perception of presence. This dramatically enhances personal bonding and increases rapid information transference thereby improving team building as well as team coordination effectiveness. The ability of Wonderland to automatically establish audio links based on proximity of avatar relationship as well as the ability to share files and applications reveals the power that is achievable with this type of technological approach.

In the report, I also discussed the success of massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs) such as Blizzard’s World of Warcraft (WoW). I used this as an example not only for the financial success of the product, approximately $2 billion per year, but also as an indication of how team building can be achieved in a virtual environment. If you remove the gaming aspect of the product, it becomes a coordination tool for teams of individuals brought together from global distances. There are arenas in World of Warcraft where as many as 200 players from around the world will work as teams at the same time to accomplish defined goals. 3D virtual world immersion, avatar proximity, audio communication, text messaging, and perception of presence are all established simultaneously within these massive events that occur in always-on real time. Many times, while playing WoW in Los Angeles, I will be on a team composed of people who at the same time are sitting in Australia, Japan, and New York.

I mentioned in the report that corporate management might not see that Wonderland has these powerful benefits. This could be a challenge for some to overcome. The perception of cyberslacking might be a factor on how quickly this technology is adopted. If management views 3D virtual workspace as a diversion, then management might push back, not supplying the opportunities that the technology needs to develop. Perhaps the trade-off will become clearer as the economy continues to flounder. The need to formulate teams, pull in distant resources, and develop team effectiveness through personal bonding while at the same time reducing travel costs might prove to be the tipping point for the future of virtual world technology. It is a powerful tool, and if thoughtfully introduced, could give organizations a distinct advantage over their competition.

I appreciate the information that was available through the Wonderland open source web site that contributed to my understanding of the progress of the technology. This proved to be a valuable resource for my report. I was excited to receive a grade of 100% for the report and my final course grade of an “A.”

Thank you, Nicole and the team that is working on this great application. I will be looking forward to your future developments in the field.

Sincerely,
Kenneth D. Merriman, MBA, MA-Information Technology Management

Well, you know the saying, "Another month, another Wonderland 0.5 developer release". Ok, maybe it's not really a saying; maybe I just made that part up. And it wasn't true for last month. But it is time for another developer "release" of v0.5. Like always, these are just snapshots of the code base that have a fair bit of additional functionality since the last developer release and have gone through the most elemental testing to make sure all of the basics work. Not to say there aren't bugs -- there are, and I'll provide a link to some of the one's we feel are most likely to affect you below.

Disclaimer: Project Wonderland is experimental, open-source software. It is not a product. This is an early-access developer release which is missing features and has bugs.

How to Get It

This developer release is available as source-code in a subversion repository. Please read the Download, Configure, Build and Run from the Wonderland v0.5 Source tutorial for instructions.

As always, you can find links to all of our documentation from the Project Wonderland 0.5 web site.

What's in it?

There have been tons of changes since our last developer release two months ago, with lots of new features. Here is an overview of the goodies in this developer release:

1. Federation: You can place portals in-world through which avatars can teleport to other worlds on other servers. Much like a web browser, you can also teleport to a new world without restarting the client by entering a URL in the Location bar.
2. More Avatar System Implementation: The avatar system now allows you to (randomly) select the appearance of your avatar. Once you find an avatar you like, you can save it.
   
3. Rewritten "AppBase" API: The API to support writing 2D applications has been entirely re-architected and simplified.
4. Initial Security Infrastructure: The initial infrastructure to support cell-level security and authentication has been added.
5. Initial X11 App Support: X11 application sharing makes its first appearance with server-launched app support on Linux (Ubuntu).
6. Text Chat: Group text chat as well as person-to-person text chat are now available.
7. Orientation World: A new default, "orientation" world is available as an add-on module and features some of the new graphics capabilities of Project Wonderland.
8. WebDAV Content Repository: A WebDAV-based content repository is now integrated with the system, allowing you to upload and use assets in the repository. You can browse the contents of the WebDAV repository using a simple graphical UI.
9. Drag and Drop Support: You can add certain content into the world by dragging-and-dropping it into a Wonderland window. So far, the following file types are supported: .kmz (3D models), .png and .jpg (2D images), and .svg (whiteboard documenets). When one of these types of files is dropped into the world, the application or cell that supports that content type is automatically launched, displaying the new content. You may define support for new file types in your custom Cell types too.
10. Preliminary NPC Support: You can use the Cell Palette to add a non-player character (NPC) into the world. A simple dialog allows you to change the character and control its movement.
11. Redesigned Menu System: The main menu system has been redesigned and simplified.
    

Watch the video above to see a glimpse of the new orientation world as well as demonstrations of drag-and-drop, federation, security, and NPCs. Note that the video also includes a segment on "High Definition Video." This application is not yet finished, and is therefore not included in this Dev5 release, but we thought you'd like to see a preview of it.

Java SE 5 Not Supported When Using Avatars

In this developer release, to use the new avatar system, please use Java SE 6. There is a bug (Issue #68: JDK 5 throws StreamCorruptionException) that prevents the use of Java SE 5 (aka JDK 5). If you would still like to use Java SE 5, then you can turn off the avatar system by setting the following in core/run-client.properties and use the lower quality 'angel' avatars instead:

avatar.detail=low

Information on Shared X11 Applications

The implementation of shared X11 apps in Dev5 is preliminary. So far, we have tested Gnome-terminal, Solitaire and Firefox, but not much else. If you manage to get different apps to work, please let us know by posting a message to the forum. And, of course, if an app doesn't work, file a bug on it.

To run an X11 app, open the Cell Palette and select "Run X11 App" and then enter the command (e.g. firefox) into the command entry and click Run. Note that the app will be run on the same machine that is running the Darkstar server, so if you use an absolute path in this command, you must use a valid file system path on the server machine. If you use just the command name alone, you need to make sure that this command is in your execution path before starting the Wonderland web server.

Because the implementation is preliminary, there are some restrictions you must observe, as well as several bugs to be aware of. Please refer to this list of restrictions/limitations. One important limitation is that only one X11 application will currently run at a time.

Bugs

There are a number of bugs filed against Version 0.5. You can always see the complete bug list, and file a new bug, using the Issue Tracker. Here are the ones that we think are most important (P1):

• Project Wonderland P1 Bugs

As those of you who follow Wonderblog know, release testing is one of the favorite parts of my job. Today we were doing a final test to decide if "Dev5" - the 5th developer release of Project Wonderland v0.5 - is ready to release. We were quite pleased with the results of the test. We ran through adding objects to the world using the cell palette and drag-and-drop. We manipulated the objects once in world and tested out object-level security. We randomly generated new avatars, and we tested a host of audio features including mute, reconnecting the softphone, and changing audio quality. Here we all are sitting around an audio recorder recording silly things. We played them back, and then got confused about which voices were in the recording and which voices were live. Then you can see us visiting an Egyptian temple (found in the Google 3D Warehouse).

After convincing Deron to get out of the box of donuts Paul provided as a testing treat, he started up Firefox for us. We were all happy to see the return of shared X applications!

Jon also had a surprise for us. He added a nifty module for monitoring client memory usage and other important statistics. This should make it much easier to track down memory leaks and troubleshoot a host of other problems (I apologize for forgetting to take a screen shot).

We only found one show-stopper bug related to the security component. Fortunately Jon thinks the problem is easy to fix, so we'll do a quick retest tomorrow to verify the fix and then you should be seeing a Dev5 release announcement in the next few days.  

This year's JavaOne conference is just around the corner!  Wonderland will be very well represented, with four related sessions on the program:

Creating Games with the Open-Source Multithreaded Game Engine (MTGame)
Tuesday - 3:20pm - Hall E 133

Doug and Deron will cover the details of MT-Game, the new graphics engine in Wonderland 0.5.  This session is for anyone who cares about building high-performance 3D graphics using Java.  Doug has already started building demos, and I can't wait to see the eye candy!

A Virtual Multimedia Office
Wednesday - 1:30pm - Hall E 133

Our friends from Ericsson will be showing off some very cool features they have added to Wonderland as part of a mixed-reality office project.  They have implemented some incredible features like suport for navigating the world, hearing audio and using documents, all from a mobile phone. I don't want to give too much away, but I'm looking forward to hearing what you get when you combine Wonderland, a television and a chumby.

Fusing 3-D Java™ Technologies to Create a Mirror World
Wednesday - 2:50pm - Hall E 133

The folks at SRA have been working on building mirror worlds using Java APIs.  This talk is all about how to use real-world data into a 3D environment, a subject near and dear to the Wonderland team's heart.

Project Wonderland: Build 3-D Virtual Worlds with Java™ Technology
Wednesday - 6:45pm - Hall E 133

Last, but certainly not least, the Wonderland BOF will be an informal tour of everything Wonderland.  We'll keep it light with plenty of demos and special guests.  A great chance to learn about Java for virtual worlds, meet your fellow Wonderland enthusiasts, and hang out with the Wonderland team.

There you have it - practically our own track in Hall E 133. Clearly, the place to be during the conference.  Make sure to check out the special deals - including free registration - for student and educators. We hope to see you there!