2018 IMA: EDU: Wanted: a virtual world viewer for education. Straw-man model

Wanted: a virtual world viewer for education: 
Straw-man model
Updated 1/11/2018

A straw-man model for a virtual world viewer is presented with the objective of eliciting comments and suggestions for improvement.  Comments and suggestions will be used to produce a more refined model.  This article is explicitly licensed as public domain.

• A straw-man model is used to start developing specs
• Straw-man strategy: You put it up and everyone tells you what is wrong with it.
• Comments and suggestions will be used to produce a more refined model.
• This article is explicitly licensed as public domain.

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What do we need from a viewer for education and educational research?

• Minimize viewer learning time 
• Capability: User activity tracking.
• Use secure, web-compatible exchange protocols (https)
• Meet standard accessibility requirements for educational offerings.
• Use a standard, widely taught, scripting language.
• Provide for still and video capture. by learner, instructor, and researcher
• Provide settings to configure for multiple learning styles.
• Mobile device compatibility
• Microlearning compatibility 
• Support for individualized instruction guided by observed performance.
• Comply with relevant industry specs.

Easy learning of viewer use

• Cut actions to be learned to minimum needed for education:
• Walk, talk (voice), text
• Make friends, locate friends
• Send and receive instant messages
• Click objects to activate or select them.
• Gather objects and place them (learners can build to keep score)
• More? TBD

Accessibility requirements (TBD)

• Text to speech (probably available)
• Speech to text (in test on web-worlds)
• Use only browser compatible calls 
• More?  TBD

Desirable features

• Optional recording to MP4
• Recall recording: Last N minutes before an error. 
• Small segment video recording.
• Small segment saving for micro learning review.
• Add drag and drop importing for images, COLLADA files*, videos, urls, and avatars.
• *And other industry standard model formats: obj, 3ds, wrl, x3d
• Allow user to drag windows off the viewer screen.
• Keep compatibility with OpenSimulator, Helios, Halcyon  and Whitecoresim 
• Integrate with web-world development (Cybalounge, Webworldz)
• Offer optional tips on learning and web-use.
• Provide hooks for the insertion of hand-held controls.
• Provide a way to overlay part of the virtual world scene on a video image.
• More?  TBD

Relevant industry specs

Thanks to Lisa Laxton (Infinite Metaverse Alliance) for help on this

Virtual Worlds and Simulation

http://www.web3d.org/standards  VRML-ISO Standards .wrl and .x3d formats plus Humanoid Animation
https://www.khronos.org/files/collada_spec_1_5.pdf Standard for Collada 3D .dae files
https://www.sisostds.org/ProductsPublications/Standards.aspx  Standards page mostly for real-time military simulation HLA and DIS standards
https://www.nationalbimstandard.org/   Building Model Standards Info Model Correct RL design for size etc. Human sizing
http://www.opengeospatial.org/docs/is  Open Geospatial Standards (Close to Web3D GIS mapping)

Accessibility

https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/accessibility World Wide Web Accessibility Standards
https://www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/statutes/sec504.htm   Accessibility Standards
https://www.section508.gov/content/learn/laws-and-policies  Accessibility Rehabilitation Act

Usability, User Interface Design, and User Experience

https://www.usability.gov/ User Experience Guidelines
http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/r_international.htm  Tools for Usability 
https://www.w3.org/standards/webdesign/  Web design Standards HTML5 etc
https://www.w3.org/standards/agents/  Browser Standards media players etc.

Internet-based Data

https://www.internetsociety.org/publications/ietf-journal-april-2016/internet-things-standards-and-guidance-ietf  Standards for IOT
https://www.w3.org/WoT/ Standards for Web of Things
https://www.w3.org/standards/xml/  XML Standards

Security

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyber_security_standards  Cyber Security Standards
http://www.iso27001security.com/html/27033.html Network Security Standards Applies to Open Simulator 
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/design-guidelines/index  .net Specificiation for c#
https://cryptoconsortium.github.io/CCSS/  C4 Crypto Currency Standards

Virtual and Augmented Reality

https://standards.ieee.org/develop/project/3333.3.html Head mounted Display Motion sickness issues
https://www.vrs.org.uk/virtual-reality-gear/head-mounted-displays/ VR Standards headsets for UK
http://standards.ieee.org/innovate/ar/  Standards for AR headsets
https://standards.ieee.org/develop/wg/VRAR.html  New committee at IEEE for VR Standards

WebGL specs (for web-worlds) 

Suggested open source resources for viewer

Voice

• Wire (wikipedia)
• Wire (about)
• Wire (feature)
• Mumble 
• Freeswiitch
• Ring 
• Note: voice must be encrypted for secure communications

Mesh handling

• Blender
• MeshLab
• Meshlab (download)
• Wings3D

Viewer

• Second life viewer
• Firestorm
• Other third party viewers

Notes

Open Source Viewers (Source Code):

Linden Labs (original project)
http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Get_source_and_compile

OnLook (third party viewer of interest)
https://github.com/diva/OnLook

Firestorm (third party viewer of interest)
http://hg.phoenixviewer.com/phoenix-firestorm-release/

Kokua OS (third party viewer of interest)
https://bitbucket.org/kokua/kokua-os

Radegast (third party viewer of interest)
https://bitbucket.org/cinderblocks/radegast

Singularity (third party viewer of interest)
https://github.com/singularity-viewer/SingularityViewer

CtrlAltStudio (third party viewer of interest no longer in development)
https://ctrlaltstudioviewer.codeplex.com/

Alchemy (third party viewer of interest)
https://bitbucket.org/alchemyviewer/alchemy
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License

• Original text in this blog is CC By: unless specified public domain
• Use as you please with attribution: link to the original.
• All images without attribution in this blog are CC0: public domain.

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