Report Number: CS-TR-96-1574
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: Effective Remote Modeling in Large-Scale Distributed
Simulation and Visualization Environments
Author: Singhal, Sandeep K.
Date: September 1996
Abstract: A Distributed Interactive Simulation provides the illusion of
a single, coherent virtual world to a group of users located
at different machines connected by a network. Networked
virtual environments are used for multiplayer video games,
military and industrial training, and collaborative
engineering. Network bandwidth, network latency, and host
processing power limit the achievable size and detail of
future simulations.
This thesis describes network protocols and algorithms to
support "remote modeling," allowing a host to model and
render remote entities in large-scale distributed
simulations. These techniques require fewer network resources
and support more entity types than previous approaches. The
Position History-Based Dead Reckoning (PHBDR) protocol
provides accurate remote position modeling and minimizes
dependencies on network performance and entity
representation. PHBDR is a foundation for three protocols
which model entity orientation, entity structural change, and
entity groups.
This thesis shows that a simple, efficient protocol can
provide smooth, accurate remote position modeling and that it
can be applied recursively to support entity orientation,
structure, and aggregation at multiple levels of detail;
these protocols offer performance and costs that are
competitive with more complex and application-specific
approaches, while providing simpler analyses of behavior by
exploiting this recursive structure.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/96/1574/CS-TR-96-1574.pdf