Fuzzy-Timing Petri Net Modeling and Simulation of a Networked Virtual Environment – NICE

Despite their attractive properties, networked virtual environments (net-VEs) are notoriously difficult to design, implement and test due to the concurrency, real-time and networking features in these systems. The current practice for netVE design is basically trial and error, empirical, and totally lacks formal methods. This paper proposes to apply a Petri net formal modeling technique to a net-VE NICE (Narrative Immersive Constructionist / Collaborative Environment), predict the net-VE performance based on simulation, and improve the net-VE performance. The NICE is essentially a network of collaborative virtual reality systems called the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment). First, we present extended fuzzy-timing Petri net models of both CAVE and NICE. Then, by using these models and Design/CPN as the simulation tool, we have conducted various simulations to study real-time behavior, network effects and performance (latencies and jitters) of NICE. Our simulation results are consistent with experimental data.