AVIARY

Background

Different applications of VR will require different features, some may need to closely model physical laws, other may be more abstract. To support this AVIARY has the concept of a `virtual world'. A `virtual world' defines a set of attributes which will be possessed by all artifacts in an instance of that world. It also specifies a set of constraints which govern artifact behaviour. The definitions of the `virtual worlds' form a multiple inheritance hierarchy allowing new worlds to be defined in terms of existing worlds rather than from scratch. The term `artifact' is used to refer to an entity which can be seen, heard, felt ot otherwise experienced in a virtual world - this concept is distinct from the software constructs that cause an artifact to be manifest. AVIARY allows multiple worlds with different laws to be concurrently active.

The implementation is composed of loosely connected autonomous objects which execute concurrently. Some objects will represent artifacts in the virtual world, other objects act as device drivers for input and output devices or provide services. An example of one type of object which performs a service is the `object server' which provides an execution environment for other objects and a means for defining them. In AVIARY a user is no different to any other object, the object representing the user will normally communicate with at least one input object and at least one output object. There is no restriction on the number of concurrently active users.

A prototype implementation exists and is being actively developed by myself. There are also some undergraduate and postgraduate students working on AVIARY related projects with the Manchester Advanced Interfaces Group.

Air Traffic Control Implementation

One of the applications currently implemented using AVIARY is an experimental display for Air Traffic Control (ATC) in which aircraft are displayed in 3D space with the option of showing a `flight tube' encompassing the volume of space the aircraft will fly through a specified time into the future. The information for this experimental application is drawn from data captured from radar near Heathrow airport and thus accurately reflects a real-world situation.

Here are some snapshots of the display from the ATC application.

This image shows a close up of an aircraft and the flight tube which encloses the volume of space through which the aircraft will fly in the near future.

This shows the display with flight tubes for a small number of aircraft.

This shows the display without flight tubes for approximately 200 aircraft.

This is the same display as previously, only looking straight down onto the aircraft below.

Links

The following are links to related pages: