Our intention is to create an open source IP-based platform for multi-user, interactive, distributed, high-quality 3D graphics and audio for home, public and personal use. The platform will support high-quality 3D-graphics as well as high-quality 3D-audio and acoustic simulation. The goal is to create a platform that can unify the technology found in virtual reality, games, and networking to form a delivery platform for a new form of content. Media has benefited enormously by content delivery standards such as 35mm film, PAL/NTSC, FM radio, and HTML. Today we see a game market with huge potential held back by the lack of content standard and closed hardware platforms. If this technology could be made standardized we would be able to create development pipelines, tools and education that would increase overall quality and experience, drastically reduce the development cost of content and open up for a wide range of applications. With most households having computers and with the advent of cheap 3D hardware and broadband Internet connections we believe that the time has come. This platform must be open to allow any content provider to create content, any hardware vendor to create new hardware and any tool/technology vendor to add software.
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The foundation of the platform is an IP network protocol for integrated dynamic 3D-graphics and 3D-audio content. This lightweight, low latency network protocol will be based on an existing protocol known as Verse developed by one of the partners. This protocol lets multiple components act together as one large application by sharing data over a network. If one application makes a change to the data the change is distributed instantly to all interested clients. This simple network protocol allows anyone to write components and applications that are compatible. The protocol is usually configured with a central server that acts as a hub passing of messages to the clients. Clients no longer needs to access data through load/save features since all communication is done instantly using the protocol. This also adds redundancy since all clients and the server have a copy of the data. No data is lost if one component crashes. The data format used by the protocol is an easy-to-use, non-application specific format, but with advanced features as subdivision surfaces geometry, shader trees, high dynamic range and 3D textures.
We have gathered researchers and experts in relevant fields like 3D graphics, interaction, gaming, 3D tools, 3D audio, Virtual Reality, display systems, 3D processing and hand-held devices to come together under the umbrella of this idea of a common network protocol for information exchange. One partner in the project is the Blender Foundation bringing in a community of open source developers. Blender is by far the largest open source 3D creation tool, with a registered user-base of over 250,000 users worldwide (march 2002). All software developed in the project will be open source but other companies may develop modules for Uni-Verse, which are proprietary.
Schedule
The Uni-verse project will run for three years, beginning in February 2004. During that period we will publish more material here, whitepapers and source code as well.
Deliverables
The main deliverable of the project will be a tested and verified prototype of the Uni-Verse system consisting of the following components:
• An open specification of the protocol and libraries, which implements it.
• Uni-Verse server
• Visual and Audio Rendering clients for workstations, and immersive environments.
• Visual and Audio Rendering for thin clients such as PDAs and mobile phones
• Modelling tools
• A plug-in for an existing geometric modelling tool
• A progressive radiosity module
• A scripting client, which facilitate development of interactive applications without programming.
• A client for dynamic mesh generation, L-systems etc.
• Tools for administration of Uni-Verse systems
• Alternative server implementation for large data sets and thin clients
To consult our public deliverables online, click here.