I will discuss our use of multicast for multiple (hundreds) of simultaneously interacting entities, using the IEEE Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) protocol. DIS communicates physics information (position, orientation) and dead reckoning (velocities, accelerations). Where we want to go: arbitrarily large numbers of entities in large-scale virtual environments (LSVEs). Next work steps: porting DIS libraries cross-platform, making them freely available, and developing Java hooks for use by the web-based Virtual Reality Modeling Language (VRML) 2.0.
Presentation materials in HTML and PostScript.
Michael R. Macedonia and Donald P. Brutzman, MBone Provides Audio and Video Across the Internet. IEEE COMPUTER 27:4, 30-36 (April 1994).
This introduction to the MBONE is available in PostScript formatted ASCII text and HTML (the IP address of taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil is 131.120.1.13). We wrote this article for two reasons: first, to clarify terminology and technical questions about how the MBone works; second, to help people get their sites connected and use the tools more effectively. Mike and I again wish to thank the originators of the MBone tools and the dozens of MBone users who provided essential contributions to this article.
Pointers to additional resources:
ftp://taurus.cs.nps.navy.mil/pub/mosaic/mbone.html
http://www.eit.com/techinfo/mbone/