MASSIVE: Model, Architecture and System for Spatial Interaction in Virtual Environments

User-level features

• It is a multi-user distributed V.R. system.
• It runs on Sun and SGI platforms.
• There are textual, graphical and audio client programs (usable in any combination) allowing users to communicate by graphical gestures, typed messages or real-time packetised audio.
• Text users may interact with graphical users and vice-versa.
• All media are controlled by aura, focus and nimbus.
• It includes adaptor objects (e.g. conference table, podium).
• There may be any number of worlds with portals to move between worlds.
• Each process obtains and uses only (spatially) local information.
• New media can be added without affecting the core system.

Lower-level features

• connection oriented networking described by connected interfaces.
• interfaces integrating RPCs, streams and attributes.
• general-purpose type and value manipulation (including type-driven marshalling and file parsing and a local-memory database).
• keyword-based interface trading for coordinating client programs for different media.
• spatial interface trading based on aura collisions.
• medium-independent peer connections implementing focus, nimbus and awareness.
• integrated support for focus, nimbus and aura adaptors.

People

• Chris Greenhalgh

Pictures and Movies

• An MPEG of MASSIVE (1.4Meg)
• Screenshots from MASSIVE

Guides and Tutorials

• Installation and Users Guide (postscript format)
• Intially setting up MASSIVE
• Enabling event logging in MASSIVE
• MASSIVE commands
• A Quick Tutorial on Focus
• How to write on the blackboard in MASSIVE

Related Systems

I have stopped development of MASSIVE1 and am working with Dave Snowdon on CVE (also known as MASSIVE-2).

Example Projects

Comic

International trials across Europe (e.g. 23/5/95: 9 users, 4 sites, 3 countries - UK, Sweden, Germany)

DEVRL

As one of the distributed VR systems under test

Inhabit

Extensive use (17 meetings) in the BT/JISC funded project

Publications

• Greenhalgh, C., and Benford, S., "MASSIVE: a Distributed Virtual Reality System Incorporating Spatial Trading," in Proc. IEEE 15th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (DCS'95), Vancouver, Canada, May 30 - June 2, 1995, IEEE Computer Society. [postscipt]
• Benford, S., Bowers, J., Fahlén, L., and Greenhalgh, C., "Managing mutual awareness in collaborative virtual environments," in the Proc. of the ACM conference on Virtual Reality Software and Technology (VRST'94), Singapore, August 1994, ACM Press. [postscript]
• Benford, S., Bowers, J., Fahlén, L., Greenhalgh, C., Mariani, J., and Rodden, T., "Networked Virtual Reality and Cooperative Work", to appear in Presence (MIT Press), mid. 1995.
• Greenhalgh, C. M., and Benford, S. D. (1995): "MASSIVE: A Virtual Reality System for Tele-conferencing", ACM Transactions on Computer Human Interfaces (TOCHI), 2 (3), pp. 239-261, ISSN 1073-0516, ACM Press, September 1995. [postscript]
• Greenhalgh, C., and Benford, S., "Virtual Reality Tele-conferencing: Implementation and Experience," to be presented at ECSCW'95.
• Steve Benford and Lennart Fahlen, "A Spatial Model of Interaction in Virtual Environments", in Proc. Third European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW'93), Milano, Italy, September 1993. [postscript]
• Greenhalgh, C., "An experimental implementation of the spatial model," in Proc. 6th ERCIM workshops, Stockholm, June 1-3, 1994, Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Stockholm, Sweden. [postscript]
• Greenhalgh, C. (1997): "Analysing movement and world transitions in virtual reality tele-conferencing", Internal report. [postscript]