Towards a Virtual Environment for Interactive World Building

We propose an architecture for virtual environments that is aimed at the construction of a global, continuous, shared, and persistent information space. Such a system must support three-dimensional interaction of a large number of users and allow integration of user-developed applications. Our system is based on a client-server architecture: The server is responsible for management and maintenance of the virtual environment. Users can be present in the environment using software clients. The environmental database is composed of objectoriented units with multiple levels of autonomy. Scalability is achieved by a network of servers that cooperate by taking on responsibility for different regions within the simulated environment. We also report on the status of our ongoing prototype implementation of this architecture. CR Descriptors: C.2.4 [Computer Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems Distributed Applications; I.3.2 [Computer Graphics]: Graphics Systems Distributed/Network Graphics; I.3.7 [Computer Graphics]: Three-dimensional Graphics and Realism Virtual Reality;