New infrastructure requirements for the 3D Web
Original article at Maxping.org
The core assumptions on which the internet infrastructure is built are fundamentally different from what 3D web requires ( Maxping definition of 3D Web). Thinkbalm suggests in their recent study, that year 2009 will be the watershed year in which we will see how virtual world applications begin to really emerge. Maxping wrote about how big companies are gathering around Opensim and related open source projects to better understand and even take part in the development of the new 3D web.
Check out the new study from ThinkBalm for further proof of the business value of virtual worlds.
Although the software platforms for virtual worlds are still not ready, we can, in addition to those needs we know of, foresee many of the requirements the 3D web will place for the end-to-end system.
The current internet is an answer to old needs
During 1996 and 1997 Internet experienced very dramatic exponential growth in traffic and bandwidth consumption. That comparatively short period was an exception to other years and the Internet traffic has been growing approximately only 100% each year after that. The dogma “traffic doubles every three months” (originating in the dotcom bubble era) led to an investment leading to massive overcapacity to the core network.
What virtual worlds really miss network-wise is a low lag connection to the virtual world server and to the peer users. High lag causes big problems when it comes to showing a timely world response to the user actions. The lag should be kept below 50 ms for good results, but applying dead-reckoning and prediction algorithms the lag can grow up to 200 ms before users notice it – this depends greatly on the application and varies per use case, however.
The end user access to Internet is often via asymmetric services (ADSL), where bandwidth from Internet to the user is high – currently for example 8Mbit/second – while the bandwidth from the user to Internet is low – often less than 1Mbit/second. This asymmetry was built to serve web browsing, video and other media streaming – all services that stress the bandwidth from Internet to the user thousands time more than the upstream bandwidth.
The asymmetry becomes a problem with virtual worlds however, when users need to collaborate with each other. The shortest communication route is directly from peer-to-peer, stressing the uplink bandwidth much more than the traditional applications do. This also draws the attention to current firewalls and NAT systems which still need an efficient way to bypass them in a secure and reliable way.
The design principle for an enterprise database driven client-server application is different from virtual worlds. For thes eenterprises it is important to keep as much as possible of the application business logic, calculation and functionality at the server’s end. The clients are reduced to bare machines, preferably using only a browser user interface that communiates with the server. The application designers of the virtual future need to turn this upside down; while the business logic may still be at the server’s end, most of the computation happens at the client’s end.
Why? Because the user experience matters. Response time needs to be kept at absolute minimum.
User experience drives the 3D Web
The basis of all succesfull products is an excellent user experience. Even as it is an undeniably important factor for traditional applications, it becomes even more crucial for virtual worlds. The basic assumption of a virtual world is that it is immersive, i.e. it creates a feeling of being there. The immersiveness can not achieved succesfully if the simulation quality and the manner in which the user experiences it, is not good enough. People’s brains are good in catching differences between virtual world and the real world, in a way that breaks the feeling of immersion. Examples of such things are lag in user interface response, poor or unsteady frame rate, rendering artifacts, breaking basic physical rules in an odd way – meaning that it is ok to fly as long as it looks like smooth and intentional.
The end user equipment is often optimized for traditional office applications – word processing, spreadsheet and the like. The 3D web needs high end gaming computer performance, especially efficient rendering performance is critical. Often a neglected aspect is sound quality, it must be spatial 3D and of high quality – often headphones offer the best bang per buck – and the speakers can not be just the cheapest tin cans. CPU and memory requirements are easily met with a modern system, but still “more is better” for virtual worlds use as with almost any other modern software application.
The smooth 3D web user experience needs natural-fit input/output devices, like Ball-it control ball, high quality web camera, and Emotiv headset. The rise of 3D monitors is also something that adds a great deal into immersiveness of a virtual world application. See how the vision for the user interface looks like from the Maxping article “The world builder“.
For mobile and small devices the story changes. What is the point of enabling a virtual world for a mobile phone? Possibility to join virtual meetings from a mobile device will be a requirement after the first successful pilot of a such virtual meetings at a corporation. The user interface needs to be different to a desktop, and the mobile use has different rules than what stated so far: For example the computation must be shifted to the server as much as possible, and peer-to-peer networking is not feasible in many cases.
Summary – what needs to be done?
- End user needs more bandwidth to upstream direction to facilitate growing need for P2P communication.
- The computer equipment must be optimized for 3D graphics and sound to provide smooth user experience.
- The input and output devices must be re-thought to support more natural interaction.
- Application computations must happen at the client end as much as possible.
- Internet core networks must be built to provide low-lag connections.
This article just scratches the surface of the ideas that need to be thought through to make this mayor changeto the whole infrastructure of the internet that is needed. Many new and old businesses will find ways to make things easier for the users.
This change is going to be a huge opportunity for everyone, once again.