Bruce Damer's talk on Virtual Worlds and Simulating Space for Immersive Education Summit,...

I. The Virtual World

Bruce DamerBruce@Damer.com

Contact Consortium, DigitalSpace

II. Simulating Space

Immersive Education Initiative's London Summit at the London School of Economics (May 23-24th):

I. The Virtual World

Virtual Worlds: The New Medium for the 21st Century

So where did (digital) virtual worlds come from?We first learned to play together in a digital world

in Spacewar! in 1962 (on a PDP-1)

…and in 1974, the first 3D virtual worlds in Maze War

And then we learned how to imagine and describe worlds, players and objects in text-

based worlds: MUDs, Adventure, Plato, LambdaMOO & etc (70s-80s)

…then in 1986 affordable personal computers are connected to dial-up networks

And Lucasfilm’s Habitat (and avatars) were born

And then… Worlds Chat, 1995: where Avatars first teleported into the Internet

Also in that year Steven Spielberg created the marriage of virtual worlds and Hollywood with Starbright World

Followed by an explosion of worlds in the mid 1990s…

Platform, User, Company & Venture Landscape

The Mid 90s - The Early Adopter “Cambrian Explosion” period

Lets take a look at some of them…

Explosion of Social Virtual Worlds platforms(Book Avatars by Damer – 1997)

Case Study: Alphaworld

Ron Britvich’s design notes(Spring 1995)

Alphaworld 1995“first teleport”

And in-world building

And emergenceof community

And shared building

…learning to meet, greet, build in Summer 1995… 1997 and onwards

AlphaWorld “satellite map” 1995-96

Working out how to meet (talking circle) and working together to build-Sherwood Forest Towne (Jan ‘96).

Roles, Robin Hood, Town Crier, old towne layout,

new town, vandalism, first informal ethnographic

practice

1996-IRL

Building the CommunityThe Avatars Conferences - IRL and

InWorld

2004

19981999

2000

2001

2002 2003

1997-IRL

1996-2004

The Avatars IRL ConferencesEarth to Avatars 96(San Francisco)

Avatars 97(San Francisco)

Design of the first large scale event in avatar cyberspace: Avatars98 Inside Cyberspace

first CyberConference

AW-versionDesign elements: single large meeting space - avatars, chat, web cams,

streaming voice, bots

Visual and functional elements of Avatars98

Virtual Worlds Design enters outerspacein: Avatars 99 & 2000

…and through common media archetypes: Avatars2001

Preview the Dipity VWTimeline& Internet Archive Video Collection

Preview the Dipity VWTimeline& Internet Archive Video Collection

www.VWTimeline.org

II. Simulating Space

Learning Cases for Virtual Worlds www.DigitalSpace.com

Learning case study: Virtual Walk on the Moon with Apollo astronaut Rusty

Schweickart

Rusty Schweickart in Cyber Space - 1999

Rusty Schweickart in Outer Space - 1969

Rusty became our historical actor and narrator to commemorate the 30th

anniversary of the Apollo XI moon landing

DriveOnMars: DigitalSpace’s simulator/experience for the public (2004)

Lunar Rover Polar Ice Mission – DigitalSpace/NASA MSFC, ARC (RLEP2)

DigitalSpace “DSS”

modular plug-in

architecture – all Open Source!

Now lets jump into 2009.. NASA’s Educational Spacewalk Simulation, STS-125

(find it all at www.DigitalSpace.com)