Tim Wang's eLearning Blog

In extension of the Ancient Spaces project, my team has recently launched the Arts Metaverse project which will focus on developing an open source platform to accommodate the need of sharing high quality 3D models in a synchronized multi-user environment. This is an ambitious goal so we need a “giant's shoulder” to stand on. The Open Croquet Project is going to be the giant. For those of you may not know,

Croquet is a powerful open source software development environment for the creation and large-scale distributed deployment of multi-user virtual 3D applications and Metaverse that are (1) persistent (2) deeply collaborative, (3) interconnected and (4) interoperable. The Croquet architecture supports synchronous communication, collaboration, resource sharing and computation among large numbers of users on multiple platforms and multiple devices. - definition from the Open Croquet Consortium website.

I first learned about Open Croquet in early 2006, through a conversation with Scott Leslie. I was coordinating the technical development team on the Ancient Spaces project at the moment. After a few hours of fiddling, I got the beta Croquet installed and working on a Windows machine. However, it took me months to understand and appreciate the power behind this genius system. It then quickly obtained my attention from further developing the Buchanan Island in the Second Life system. Many people have asked me why? Without going into the details of the differences between Open Croquet and Second Life, I can give you two main reasons of this shift: Open Source and high quality 3D modeling. Second Life island cost a lot of money and all objects in the world of second life must be created using the basic primitives. Open Croquet allows me to freely import high quality 3D models from any professional 3D authoring programs like Blender, 3D Max or Maya 3D. Besides these two differences, there are also some other key advantages with Croquet:
- A powerful P2P net work support. When I run Croquet in my office, it automatically detects other computers around me that are running Croquet.
- The portal technology allows application sharing between different operating systems. Say I can play a PC game with my Mac friends.
- Video conferencing and other communication tools without using server technology.
- Allows users freely define the space being created, this will provide the “land owners” (the academics) complete customizable controls of the environment. (e.g. not just define the gravitational force in the land)
- Easy to back up the contents published using Croquet, easy to take them on line and off line, this avoid many copy-right issues.
- From some aspects, a structured p2p Croquet net work is much more secure than a server based large scale metaverse.

Late in the year 2006, I had the honor to attend the Open Croquet presentation at UCLA given by one of it's original architect, Julian Lombardi. It was a further eye opening experience for me. Julian explained the history and vision of this project. He also shared the industrial interest in the product. Those of you have paid attention to the Open Croquet project would have noticed it's official web site is changed. You can go there an learn more about the project development and the consortium. There are two email lists: the users' list (none programmers) and the developers' list (programmers and administrators). Subscribe and let's together develop something exciting in the open source community.

*Recommend* Watch Julian's presentation on Croquet!

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 01 in Open Croquet

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 02 in Open Croquet

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 03 in Open Croquet

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 04 in Open Croquet

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 05 in Open Croquet

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 06 in Open Croquet

Arts Metaverse Machu Picchu Models 07 in Open Croquet