Conceptual Modeling for Virtual Reality

This paper explores the opportunities and challenges for Conceptual Modeling in the domain of Virtual Reality (VR). VR applications are becoming more feasible due to better and faster hardware, and due to new technology and faster network connections they also start to appear on the Internet. However, the development of such applications is still a specialized, time-consuming and expensive process. By introducing a Conceptual Modeling phase into the development process of VR applications, a number of the obstacles preventing a quick spread of this type of applications can be removed. However, existing Conceptual Modeling techniques are too limited for modeling a VR application in an appropriate way. The paper will show how Conceptual Modeling can be done for VR and how this may make VR more accessible to non VR-specialists. Furthermore, the paper will explain how Conceptual Modeling embedded in a semantic framework can provide the basis for semantically rich VR application, which may be essential for its success in the future and its use in the context of the Semantic Web. The paper will also point to some open research problems.